The Hipno Chronicles: Phantoms of Liandris
by Kikoji Mantadurru
Summary: The Confederacy's war with the evil Furian Dominion has hit it's critical point, and a recent discovery may turn the tides in either favor. Furfic, will be quite long.
1. Prologue

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Prologue:

Beta Company's Victory at Regulus Beta

**1135 HOURS, JULY 3, 2358 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**53 REGULUS-D SYSTEM, TARGET AREA COMACHE, PLANET**

**REGULUS BETA**

The orbital pod impacted, and metal wrenched and sparked. Inside his cocoon of titanium, lead foil, and stealth ablative coating, Hipno-B292 watched black stars explode across his vision, he tasted blood in his mouth, and the last air compressed from his lungs.

Bludshot's training kicked in: he pulled the pod's twisted frame apart and blinked in the bright blue sunlight.

Something was wrong. 76 Regulus-945S was supposed to be a faint yellow sun. This was electric blue--boiling plasma blue.

He jumped, rolling to one side as the blast washed over him. The outer layers of his Semi-Powered Infiltration armor boiled and peeled like a bad sunburn.

"_Training,_" his instructor, Lieutenant Colonel Kuran, had said. "_Your training must become part of your instinct. Drill until it becomes part of your bones._" Bludshot reacted without thought; a lifetime of training took over.

He raised his PA6-L battle rifle and fired along the trajectory of the plasma bolt, making sure to sweep low.

His eyes cleared, and as he automatically reloaded his weapon, he finally saw the surface of Regulus Beta. It could have been hell: red rocks; orange dust-filled sky; the scars of a dozen impact skids and craters around him; and thirty meters ahead, dark purple splashes of Scarfer blood soaking into the sand.

Bludshot pulled out his sidearm and warily moved to the fallen aliens. There were five with extensive wounds to their lower legs. He shot them each once in their odd angular vulturelike heads, then he knelt, relieved them of their plasma grenades, and stripped off their armshields.

Although Bludshot wore the full suit of Semi-Powered Infiltration armor as issued to every Hipno Defense operative (colloquially called 'SPI' armor by technophiles), its hardened plates and photoreactive coating could only take a few glancing shots before failing. The armor's camouflaging textures sputtered and stabilized, however; and once again blended into the rocky terrain.

Every operative had recieved extensive training in using the enemy's equipment, so Bludshot would improvise. He strapped one of the Scarfer shields to his forearm. It was excellent protection, as long as you remembered to crouch behind it and cover your legs, a tactic larger LEGION soldiers would have trouble accomplishing.

The display on his faceplate flickered to life, a transparent layer of ghostly green topography. One hundred kilometers overhead, the baseball-sized Stealth Tactical Aerial Reconnaissance Satellite, or S.T.A.R.S, had come online.

A single blinking dot appeared that represented his position. Bludshot was five kilometers south of the primary target.

He scanned the horizon and saw the Furian factory city in the distance, looming from the rocky surface like a castle of rust with giant smokestacks and blue plasma coils pulsing deep inside. Beyond the factory lay the lavender shoreline of a toxic sea.

Additional dots appeared on his HUD...a dozen, two dozen, and then hundreds. The rest of Beta Company was online. Two hundred ninety-one of them. Nine hadn't made it, either dead on reentry, killed from impact, or by Furian forces before they could get out of the pods.

After the mission, he'd check the roster to see who they'd lost. For now, he stuffed his feelings into a dark corner of his mind.

Bludshot sighed with relief as he saw the eight Xs representing the subprowler Black Cat exfiltration craft appear and then fade on his display. That was their only way off this rock after Operation TORPEDO was accomplished.

Text scrolled across his display: "TEAM FOXTROT PROCEED ON VECTOR ZERO EIGHT SIX. PROVIDE FLANKING SUPPORT TO TEAM INDIA."

No reply was necessary. Orders were broadcast from S.T.A.R.S overhead, and any break of radio silence would reveal their postion.

Three of the dots on the display winked, and tiny numbers faded into view. B091 was Ruby. B174 was Flurry. And B004, that was Marco. His friends. Fireteam Foxtrot.

Bludshot loped forward, found an outcropping of rock, and took cover under it, waiting for them to catch up.

To stay on task, and not get distracted by his racing heartbeat, he reviewed Operation TORPEDO one more time. Regulus Beta was home to a Furian refinery. The sea on this tiny world was unusually rich in deuterium and tritium, which they used in their energy reactors. The factory processed the stuff, and refueled their ships, making this Furian operation on the fringe of LEGION territory a prime target. It allowed the enemy easy acess to Keidrian space.

There had been previous attempts to neutralize the target. LEGION CENTCOM had sent nukes, launched from hyperspace, but plutonium emitted an aura of Cherenkov radiation upon reentering normal space, making all the stealth coatings lead linings useless. Lady Furia's fleet had easily detected and destroyed them.

There were similarly too many Furian ships near the moon to send a slow, distantly launched nuke in normal space. Nor was a regular invasion or even the elite Basitin Shock Troopers worth the attempt. The LEGION had one chance to take the factory out before the enemy would muster their defenses.

So they were sent.

The three hundred operatives of Beta Company had been launched seven hours ago into hyperspace from the LNC carrier _Firewolf._ They had endured the ride in long-range stealth orbital drop pods, suffered debilitating nausea transitioning unshielded into normal space, and then got parboiled on the fiery ride to the surface.

From the warm welcome given by those five Scarfers, Bludshot knew they'd been detected, but the Furians might not yet know the size of the breach in their security. He'd have to move quickly, take advantage of whatever element of surprise remained, blow the factory, and if possible, the secondary targets of ammunition and ration depots.

They could still do this. They _had _to do it. Destroying that factory would cut the Furian supply lines to Keidrian/Basitin space. This is exactly what Bludshot had trained for since he was six years old--years of drills and war games and schooling. But that might not be enough.

He heard the crunch of gravel under a boot. He spun, rifle raised, and saw Ruby.

Every operative looked about the same in their SPI armor. The angular shifting camo pattern of the armor was part legionnare mail, one part tactical body armor, and one part chameleon. Bludshot, however, recognized Ruby's slender form.

He made the two-fingers-over-face gesture, the age-old silent hello. She gave him the slightest of nods. He handed her a Scarfer shield unit and two energy grenades.

Marco arrived next, then Flurry ten seconds after that.

When all their appropriated shields were in place, Bludshot gave Team Foxtrot a series of quick, sharp hand gestures, ordering them to move ahead in a loose arc formation. Stealthy, but fast.

As he stood, thunder rumbled, fire flashed in the sky, and a shadow covered them--and vanished. Two teardrop shaped Furian Lightblade fighters roared over their hiding spot.

A line of plasma erupted a hundred meters behind them--an inferno that billowed and blossomed straight toward his team.

Bludshot leapt to one side, activating his shield, holding it between him and the three-thousand degree flames that would melt through his SPI armor like butter. The force field flared white from the radiation; his skin on his palms prickled with blisters.

The plasma passed...thinned...evaporated. The air cooled. Furian air support was already in play. That made the situation a hundred times worse.

With a blink, Ryan switched his HUD from TACMAP to TEAMBIO. All members of Team Foxtrot showed skyrocketing pulses and blood pressures. But they were all still green. All alive. Good.

He sprinted. Stealth was no longer an operational priority. Getting to the factory where they couldn't be strafed was all that mattered.

Behind him, Ruby, Flurry, and Marco fell in line, covering the rough ground in long, powerful strides at nearly thirty kilometers an hour.

Red ovals appeared on Bludshot's TACMAP: Lightblades, on another attack run. More than before...three...six....ten.

Bludshot glanced to either side and saw his comrades, _hundreds_ of operatives running across the broken ground. The dust from their charge filled the air and mingled with the smoke from the last plasma blasts.

Three of them lagged behind, turned, and braced, holding M19-B SAM rocket launchers. They fired. Missiles streaked into the atmosphere, leaving snaking trails of vapor.

The first bounced off an incoming Lightblade's shield; the missile exploded, not damaging the craft, but buffeting it nonetheless into it's wingman. Both craft tumbled, lost fifty meters of altitude, and then recovered--but their leading edges scraped the ground, dissipating their weakened shields, and they spun end over end, erupting into fiery pinwheels.

The two other missiles struck their targets, overloaded shields, leaving their target Lightblades covered in soot, but otherwise intact. The two singleships waved off their attack runs.

A small victory.

Ryan slowed to a trot and watched as the remaining six Lightblades dipped and released their plasma charges, then pulled up, rolled, and vanished in the haze.

Each charge of dropped energy was a brilliant pinpoint that elongated into a lance of boiling sun-fueled sapphire. When they hit the ground, they exploded and fanned outward, propelled at three hundred kilometers per hour by momentum and thermal expansion.

A wall of flame appeared on Bludshot's left, and it made the camo panels on his armor shiver blue and white. But he didn't move. He remained transfixed on the other five fires enveloping scores of his friends.

The plasma slowed, still boiling, and then the clouds cooled and thinned to a dull gray haze, leaving crackling glassed earth and bits of charred bone in its wake.

On his TACMAP, dozens of dots winked off.

Ruby sprinted past Ryan. The sight of her snapped him back into action, and he ran.

There'd be time for fear later. And for revenge. When they blew this factory there'd be plenty of time for bloody revenge.

Bludshot shifted his focus off his TACMAP on his helmet's faceplate and farther ahead to the primary target, now only five hundred yards distant.

From the center of the city-sized factory the blue glow was too intense to stare directly at, casting hard shadows in the web of piped and the forest of smokestacks. The structure was a kilometer square with towers rising three hundred meters, perfect for snipers.

Bludshot forced himself to run faster, ahead of Ruby, Marco, and Flurry, darting from side to side. They understood and mimicked him.

Energy bolts exploded near his foot. He weaved back and forth through a hailstorm of high-angle trajectories. His suspicion about snipers had been correct.

He dodged, kept running, and squinted ahead at the edge of the factory. His faceplate automatically responded and zoomed to five-times magnification.

There was another threat: shiftin luminescent edges of force fields, Scarfers. And in the shadows, the arrogant eyes of a Furian Theron Master in purple armor, staring straight back at him.

He skidded to a halt, grabbed the sniper rifle slung on his back, and sighted through the scope. He stilled his labored breathing. A plasma bolt sizzled near his shoulder, crackling the skin of his SPI armor, singeing his flesh, but he ignored the pain, irritated only that the shot had thrown him momentarily off target. He waited for the split second between the beats of his heart, and then squeezed the trigger.

The bullet's momentum spun the Theron around. The articulation of its neck armor exploded off the creature. Bludshot shot once more, and caught it in the back. A splash of bright blue blood spattered the pipes.

Scarfers emerged from the shadows at the periphery of the factory, crawling out behind pipes and plasma tubes. There were hundreds of them.

Thousands.

And they all opened fire.

Ryan rolled to the ground, flattening himself into a slight depression. Flurry, Marco and Ruby dropped as well, their battle rifles out in front of them, ready to fire.

Plasma bolts and red-hot spikes crisscrossed over Bludshot's head--too many to dodge. The enemy didn't have to be able to see them. All they had to do was fill every square centimeter of air with lethal projectiles. His team was pinned, easy picking for those Lightblades on their next pass.

How had the Furians mustered such a counterresponse so quickly?

If they had been detected earlier, their drop pods would have been vaporized en route. Unless they had had the extreme bad luck to get here when a capital ship had been docked at the factory. On the blind side? Could the S.T.A.R.S overhead have missed something that large?

One of the Coloniel's first lessons echoed in Bludshot's head: "_Don't rely on technology. Machines are easy to break._"

His COM crackled: "M19 SAMs execute Bravo maneuver, targets painted. All other teams ready to move."

He understood: they needed cover. And the only cover was dead ahead in the factory.

From the field, six smears of vapor lanced forward to the factory. The M19 SAMs detonated on contact with pipes and plasma conduits--exploding into clouds of black smoke and blue sparks.

The enemy fire slowed. That was their opening.

Bludshot rolled to his feet, and sprinted for the thickest smoke. Team Foxtrot followed.

Every other HD operative on the field charged as wel, hundreds of half-camouflaged armored figures, running and firing at the dazed Scarfers, appearing as a wave of ghost warriors, half liquid, half shadow, part mirage, part nightmare.

They screamed a battle cry, momentarily drowning out the sound of gunfire and explosion.

Bludshot yelled with them--for the fallen, for his friends, and for the blood of his enemies. The sound was deafening.

Scarfers broke ranks, turned to flee, and got shot in the back as their shields turned with them. But hundreds more held their ground, overlapping shields to form an invulnerable phalanx.

Ryan led Foxtrot into the smoke-filled shadows of the factory. He found a pipe the size of a redwood dripping condensed water and green coolant and took cover behind it. In the mist he saw Ruby, Marco, and Flurry take positions as well. He gave them rapid-fire orders with hand signals: _Move in and kill._

Bootfalls sounded behind him. He spun, PA6-L raised--and found himself face-to-face with a Theron, its jaw mandibles split in mimicry of an impossibly large grin. The monster held a plasma sword in one hand, and a plasma pistol in the other.

It shot and swung.

Bludshot sidestepped the deadly arcs of energy, set his foot between the Theron's too-wide stance--pushed and fired at the same time.

The Theron sprawled to the ground, and Bludshot tracked his body, spraying rounds into the slit of its helmet. He didn't miss.

Team Foxtrot closed on him, leaving six dead Scarfers behind, their bodies snapped like ragdolls. Behind them on the field came rapid thumps and flashes of heat. Plasma grenades.

Scarfers and Therons rushed from their cover in the factory to meet the rest of Beta Company on the field, realizing perhaps that it would be suicidal to fight Hipnos in close-quarters.

Thousands of Furians clashed with two hundred LEGION operatives in open combat. Tracer rounds, spikes, plasma bolts, and flaring shields made the scene a blur of chaos.

The Basitin/Keidrian forces moved with speed and reflexes no Furian could follow. They dodged, snapped necks and limbs, and with captured plasma blades, they cut through the enemy until the field ran with rivers of gore and blue blood.

Bludshot hesitated, torn between moving deeper into the factory complex and executing the mission and running back to help his comrades. You didn't just leave your friends behind.

The sky darkened, clouds overhead turning steel gray.

Bludshot's COM crackled to life: "_Omega three. Execute now! NOW!_"

That stopped him cold. Omega 3 was the panic code, an order to break and run, no matter what the cost.

Why? They were winning.

Bludshot saw the clouds move. Only...they weren't clouds.

Everything was clear to him now. Why there were so many Furians here. And why Lightblade singleships, craft designed for space combat, were bombing them.

Seven Furian cruisers sank from the clouds. Over a kilometer long, their bulbous oblong hulls cast shadows over the entire field. If these ships had been parked in formation, refueling over the complex, the S.T.A.R.S might have mistaken such large structures as _part_ of the factory.

"We have to help them," Ruby whispered over TEAMCOM.

"No," Flurry said, making a short cut motion with his hand. "The Omega order."

"We're not running," Marco broke in.

"No," Bludshot agreed. "We're not. The order is...in error." Despite the environmental controls in his SPI armor, he felt chilled.

Lightblade fighters dropped from the cruisers, dozens of them, and gathered into swarms. Darkly luminescent like a blacklight bulb, transport beams appeared from the belly of each cruiser, and from them marched hundreds of Therons onto the fold.

"But we can't help them, either," He whispered to his team.

Half of Beta Company turned to face this new threat. Impossible odds, even for Hipno, but they would buy time for the rest of them to find cover.

Finding cover was a futile tactic, though. Seven Furian cruisers had enough firepower to neutralize even two hundred Legionairres. They could pin them down, send in ground reinforcements by the thousands or, if they wanted to, glass the entire planet moon from orbit.

That left only one option.

"The core," Bludshot told them. "It's still our mission, and our only effective weapon."

There was a heartbeat pause, and then three green acknowledgement lights winked on his display. His friends knew what he was asking.

Team Foxtrot moved as one, running into the factory at top speed, dodging pipes and supply pods.

A squad of six Therons were ahead, hunkered behind a tangle of ducts. Ruby threw a handful of concussive grenades to disorient them, but the team kept running. Any delay--even to engage an enemy who could take shots at their backs--might rob them of their only chance.

The surviving Therons recovered and fired.

Marco fell, on hand clutched at the metal spikes that penetrated his armor and punctured his lower spine.

"Go!" he cried, waving them off. "I'll hold them."

Bludshot didn't break stride. Marco knew what had to be done: keep fighting until there was no fight left in him.

The core was a hundred meters ahead. It was impossible to miss, so bright Bludshot's faceplate automatically polarized to maximum tint, and it was still hard to look at. The core was the size of a ten story building, pulsing like a huge heart, fed by glowing conduits and steaming coolant pipes. It was a marvel of alien enginnering, and complex--which hopefully meant easy to break.

"Main coolant ducts there and there," Bludshot shouted over TEAMCOM and pointed. "I'll jam the dump valve." He moved to the base of the core.

Ruby's and Flurry's acknowledgment lights winked.

Bludshot's helmet display fuzzed with static, then popped and went black. The reactor plasma and its intensely fluctuating electromagnetic field was wreaking havoc with their electronics.

He found the dump valve, a mechanism the size of a Heron dropship, just below the main chamber. He unspooled the thermite-carbon cord and ran it around the valve twice. He then primed and activated the charge. A line of lightning brilliance flared and sizzled through Furian alloy, fusing the valve into a solid lump.

He glanced at Ruby. She set an explosive charge on one of the two main coolant lines that fed the reactor, and then set the timer on the detonator.

Flurry was setting his timer, too--then vanished in a flash of smoke and thunder. The core flared brighter than the sun. Coolant fumes screamed from twisted pipe and alarms blared.

"NO!" Ruby screamed.

She ran past Bludshot toward the billowing cloud of toxic coolant. He caught her wrist, jerking her to a stop.

"He's gone," he said. "EM field must have set off his charge."

She wrestled out of Bludshot's grasp.

"We have to get out of here," he told her.

She hesitated, taking one step toward Flurry.

The support structure groaned and started to melt and sag from the superheating core.

She turned back to Bludshot, nodded, and they ran out of the chamber--deeper into the factory complex, through a jungle of struts and hissing ducts, and splashing through lakes of leaked, boiling coolant.

The charge Ruby had set went off and silenced the alarms.

Even with their backs to the reactor, running at a full-out flat sprint, the glare from the core doubled as it reached near supercritical phase. It was too much to endure, even through a polarized faceplate, and Bludshot squinted his eyes nearly shut.

They turned a corner, slid down the railing of angled stairs and onto a catwalk that protruded over a ledge. Five hundred yards below, an ocean churned against rocky cliffs.

They had made it through the factory, out the back side, where massive tubes sucked in the ocean water for processing. Ruby looked back at the factory and then at Ryan.

She offered her hand. He took it.

They jumped.

In free fall, Bludshot struggled, pumping his legs. Ruby released his hand, and straightened her body. He did the same and then pointed his feet down a split second before he hit the water.

The impact stunned him, then he tasted salt, and choked on water that filled his helmet. He clawed for the surface. The lining of his SPI armor swelled, taking on water, weighing him down.

He broke the surface, paddling as hard as he could with his legs to stay afloat. He clawed at his helmet release and pulled it off. Next to him, Ruby had her helmet off as well, gasping.

"Look." He nodded at the cliff tops.

From this angle, they saw the Furian cruisers over the field. Lances of laser fire rained down from the ships' lateral weapon arrays and blasted his fellow soldiers. Firepower meant for ship-to-ship combat...how could anyone survive that?

A new sun appeared. The supercritical core flared and light filled the world. The cruisers rippled, distorted, their alloy skins boiling away in the heat. They disintigrated, bits blasted outward.

The rocky prominence shattered into molten debris.

"Down!" Bludshot cried.

He and Ruby pushed themselves underwater, diving to escape the overpressure and incinerating blast. His waterlogged armor might now save his life.

Overhead, water flash vaporized. Droplets of liquid rock and metal hissed past him. Heat smothered him...and a giant hand grasped and squeezed until all Bludshot saw was blackness.

Bludshot lay on the ground panting. They had nearly drowned after the blast, but managed to shed their armor, and finally, exhausted, swam back to the shore, and dragged themselves around the battlefield and into the hills.

He and Ruby had made it to extraction point six where he had seen one of the stealth ships.

No Furian reinforcements came. They had all been killed when the reactor blew. Operation TORPEDO was a success...but it had cost the lives of everyone else in the Beta Company contingent.

All that remained of the factory, the Furian cruisers, and ground forces of Beta Company was a glass crater four kilometers in diameter. No bones, not even a camo panel from a suit of SPI armor. Gone. Whispers in the wind.

Ruby pulled herself up against the hull of the Black Cat subprowler craft, her body trembling. She started to stagger back down the hill.

"Where are you going?"

"Survivors," she whispered, and took one uncertain step forward. "Foxtrot. We have to look."

No one had survived. They had checked all COM frequencies, searched the shoreline, fields, and hills on their long, silent hike back. No one else was alive.

Ruby was tiny. Like Bludshot, she was ten years old, but at one point six meters and seventy kilos, Ruby was one of the smallest active operatives. Without her SPI armor and weapons, and her slender red form covered only in modest body sheathing, she looked even smaller.

Ryan stood and gently put his arm around her. She trembled violently.

"You're going into shock."

He found a first-aid kit and injected her with the standard postmission antishock medical cocktail.

"Survivors..." she whispered again.

"There are none," he said. "We have to get out of here. The hyperspace capacitors will drain in four hours and we won't be able to jump."

She turned to him, eyes wide and brimming with tears. "How are you sure that we won? That we're alive?"

Bludshot was alive. He was certain. But as he cast one final glance at the crackling fields of Regulus Beta, he thought about the three hundred LEGION operatives who had died today, and felt only despair.

Had they truly won?

He helped Ruby into the prowler and closed the hatch. The ships engines thrummed to life, then dulled to a whisper. The craft lifted and angled up into the darkening sky.

Ruby's words asking if they were alive would be her last. "Posttraumatic vocal disarticulation," the experts would eventually declare. And although recertified for duty, she would remain silent---either unable, or unwilling, to speak for the rest of her life.

In the years to come, Bludshot would reflect on Ruby's last question every day. "_How do you know we're alive?_"

Something had died for every Hipno that day.


	2. A New Hope

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 1:

A New Hope

**1950 HOURS, JUNE 14, 2485 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**ABOARD LNC **_**POINT VELOCITY**_**, LOCATION CLASSIFIED**

Kikoji woke up in bed, an osmotic IV in his arm, and nearby monitors displaying his vital signs, blood composition, and brain-oxygen saturation levels.

He surmised he was in a hospital, although there was no call button, and no obvious door. There was also a camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. Kikoji felt the familiar subsonic thrum around him, and he relaxed. He was on a spaceship. Although he preferred boot-on-dirt, anywhere was better than hard vacuum.

He lowered the bed's railing, and swung his legs over the edge. Pain lanced up his side. Cracked ribs--he'd had them many times. He sat for a moment, then went and examined himself in a mirror. He was intact--but how long had he been unconscious?

The wall slid apart and a white-furred fox strode in. Curiously, he wore an Army uniform, pinned with the eagle insignia of a colonel. His dark eyes fixed upon Kikoji.

"Sir!" Kikoji started to stand and salute.

"At ease, soldier." the Colonel said.

Kikoji checked his motion. He opened his mouth to correct the Colonel's error, but fell silent. Naval NCO's were never called "soldiers," but in Kikoji's experience, officers, LEGION or otherwise, never appreciated correction unless lives were at stake.

The Colonel's continuous stare made Kikoji uneasy. In fact, several things contributed to his nervousness. He was on an LEGION ship, recieving medical care, but how had he gotten here, and why was an Army colonel interested in him?

"I am Joshua Ackerson," the Colonel said. He then did a curious thing: he held out his hand to shake.

This was a rare ocurrence. Usually no one wanted to touch a Hipno, for fear of the possible ramifications, let alone shake their hand.

Kikoji took Ackerson's hand and gingerly squeezed it. **(A/N: His enhanced strength means he has to be careful doing things everyone else does normally.)**

Ackerson. Kikoji knew that name. There had been conversations between Dr. Layman and SCPO. Raveist. Ackerson had come up a dozen times, and from their inflection and body language Kikoji had surmised he was _not _their friend.

Kikoji was aware that everyone in the LEGION and Team Hipno had the same basic goal: protecting Keidrian and Basitin from all threats. Not everyone, however, agreed on how that mandate should be executed...which led to _internal_ conflict. He understood this the way he understood basic precepts of a Stien-Fujita Translight engine. He grasped the underlying theoretical principles, but the nuances and the actual application of that knowledge remained a mystery to him.

Most likely this colonel was on permanent loan to the LEGION as a liasion officer. They often recruited civilians, officers from other branches of the military, or anyone they needed to get their job done.

An Army colonel was approximately the same rank as a Navy captain, so while Kikoji was wary, he had to be polite, and even take orders from Ackerson as long as they did not conflict with previous orders.

"If you are well enough, get dressed." Colonel Ackerson nodded to the night table, on which were Kikoji's civilian clothes, neatly folded.

Kikoji stood, removed the osmotic IV patch, and dressed.

"HIPNO-000, what is your name?" Ackerson asked.

"Kikoji, sir."

"Yes, but Kikoji what? What is your family name?"

"Mantadurru."

"Thank you." the Colonel said. "For the time being, if asked, use the last name...Jacobson"

"Yes, sir."

Kikoji buttoned his shirt. The uniform was missing the Hipno patch of a starburst eminating from a Sol rune. It instead had the clasping-paw patch of the Kiedrian Logistical Corps. It bore the single pip of a PFC and two combat ribbions for the Chambias Conflict and Operation GUILLOTINE.

"Follow me." Ackerson moved out the open doors into a narrow corridor. He led Kikoji through three intersections.

Many Naval officers passed them, but none saluted. They kept to themselves for the most part, eyes down. And while a few nodded at Kikoji, no one so much as glanced at Ackerson. Kikoji's unease at this odd situation grew palpable.

They halted at a pressure door guarded by two Keidrian wolves, both of whom saluted. Kikoji crisply returned their salute. Ackerson gave them a casual half-salute gesture.

The colonel set his hand on a biometric reader and face, retina, and palm were simultaneously scanned.

With a hiss, the door opened.

Kikoji and Ackerson stepped into a dimly lit twenty-meter wide room filled wall to wall with monitors. Spectroscopic signatures, star charts, and hyperspace pulses strobed across the screens. There were several officers and two holographic AI's consulting with them in whispered tones.

One was a gray-robed figure without a body. A wraith.

The other was a collection of disembodied eyes, mouths, and gesturing hands--what Kikoji vaguely recalled from one of Deja's art lessons as an example of cubist art.

Ackerson whisked him across the room and to another door. A second biometric scan and they entered an elevator.

There was downward motion, then a moment of zero-gee free fall, and the sensation of gravity then returned. The doors opened to a catwalk that extended over inky darkness to a blank wall.

The Colonel approached the blank wall, a seam appeared, and then the two sections pulled apart.

"This room is called 'Thor's Eye' by the junior staff," Ackerson said. "You have been temporarily granted a code-word, top-secret clearance to enter. Whatever is said inside is similarly classified and you will reveal none of our conversation unless the proper code words are provided. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Kikoji replied.

His instinct, however, was to _not _enter this room. He, in fact, wanted to be any place but in that room. But he couldn't refuse.

They entered, and the doors closed behind them; Kikoji didn't see the seam.

The room had white concave walls, and Kikoji's eyes had a hard time focusing.

"Your classification code word is 'Falcon Forty,' " Ackerson said. "Now, speak freely in here. I certainly will." He gestured to a black circular table in the center of the room and they both sat.

Kikoji cut straight to the point. "Sir, where am I? Why am I here?"

His words seemed to evaporate as he spoke them, deadened by the too-still air in this strange room.

"Of course," Ackerson murmured. "Your recovery is not complete. I had been warned of that." He sighed. "We have gone to considerable trouble to extract you from your mercernary role in NavySpecWep operations...from your recon mission to Station Delphi."

Kikoji remembered the explosion on his T-PACK; he blinked and saw, for a split second, the dizzying blur of stars. "My team," he said. "Are they--"

"Fine," Ackerson replied. "No injuries."

Kikoji inhaled, feeling his cracked rib. Not quite no injuries.

Something had changed in the Colonel's expression. The dark stare and hardness softened almost an imperceptible fraction.

In a lowered voice, Ackerson said, "Section 1 has issued you new orders." He pushed a reader across the table to Kikoji.

Kikoji thumbed the biometric and the screen warmed. There were codeword classified warnings and then he saw his transfer orders under Colonel Ackerson. The usual fields for assignment location, routing protocols, and record verification were redacted.

"You are now a part of a subsection of Gamma-3 Division," Ackerson said, "a top secret cell within Section-1. All the events at Station Delphi were staged to bring you here in the utmost secrecy for a new mission."

Staging the events at Delphi? Arranged by a subcell of S1? Something seemed wrong in a way Kikoji couldn't quite put his paw on.

But part of it made sense now. The partially decomissioned Stien-Fujita drive at Delphi Station was the perfect lure and the ideal excuse for a malfunctioning T-PACK. The sensor echo the _Circumference_ had picked up on the in-system jump _was _another prowler, the ship that had picked up Kikoji's exhausted body--after he had been propelled in a not-so-random explosive trajectory. Though he resented the manner in which they obtained him, he had to admire the sheer genius of the extraction plan.

"You have been classified as MIA," Ackerson continued. "Presumed dead."

Something cold contracted in Kikoji's stomach as the Colonel said this. He briefly thought of Liara before he checked his emotions, though, sensing that in this instance, they might not have been able to help him.

"What is this new mission, sir?"

Ackerson stared at him for a moment before responding. "I want you to train the next generation of Hipnos."

Kikoji blinked, taking in what the Colonel had just said, not quite understaing. "Sir, I was under the impression that Chief Kuran had been reassigned years ago to carry out that mission."

"The effort to train additional Hipnos was postponed indefinitely by Dr. Liara Kalsonai," Ackerson said. "There were other candidates within the gene pool, but they were out of synch with her, and _your_, age restriction protocols. and with the continuing war, her program funds were...diverted."

Kikoji had always assumed that he and his fellows were the first in a long line of Hipnos. He'd never considered they might be the first, and last, of their kind.

Ackerson continued. "Kuran, of course, will be joining you."

"It would be an honor serving with Senior Chief Kuran."

One of Ackerson's brows quirked up. "Indeed."

He motioned at Kikoji's secure tablet. "Read. New training protocols have been outlined as well as an improved augumentation regime. We've learned much from the unfortunate medical processes you and Dr. Kalsonai had at your disposal."

As he read he started to grasp the opportunities and challenges of this program. The new bioaugumentations were a quantum leap ahead of those he had reluctantly administered. There were lowere projected 'wash-out' **(Read: death) **rates. There was, however, only a fraction of the original Hipno training time and budget. They would also be issued something called Semi-Powered Infiltration (SPI) armor systems. He sighed to himself. Why were these people determined to replicate him and Jesuit?

"With these new candidates," Kikoji said. "you're trying to do more with less."

Ackerson nodded. "They'll be sent on missions with higher strategic values but correspondingly lower survivabilities. That's where you come in, Kikoji. We need your nearly unmatched prowess, and all of your field experience passed along to these candidates. You need to make these Hipnos better and train them faster. This program may be the key to our survival of this war."

Kikoji scanned the reader again. The new genetic selection protocol expanded the pool of candidates, but there were disturbing references to behavioral problems in these less-than-ideal potential Hipnos.

But this mission was vital to the war, Kikoji sensed that. And there would be SCPO Kuran. It would be good working with him again. Could the two of them really train a new generation of Hipnos?

"In ten years," Ackerson continued. "with your guidance and a little luck, there will be a hundred new Hipnos in the war. Employing several of these new Hipnos to help train the next classes, there will be thousands within twenty years. With projected improvements in technology, perhaps a hundred thousand new Hipnos will be created in thirty years."

A _hundred thousand _Hipnos fighting for the Keidrain Empire? The image swam in Kikoji's mind. Was that possible?

While he didn't understand all the ramifications, he now understood the importance of the end result. His initial feeling of unease, however, remained. How many of these new Hipnos were going to die? He steeled himself. He'd do everything he could to see they had the best training, the best equipment, be the best soldiers the Keidrian Empire had ever produced. Even then, though, would it be enough?

He took a deep breath. "Where do we begin, sir?"

Ackerson smiled. "New training facilities are being constructed. You will oversee the operation, and simultaneously begin the screening of candidates. I have an ample supply of willing recruits for you." He reached into his pocket and withdrew a tiny box, pushed it across the table to Kikoji. "One last thing."

Kikoji opened the box. Inside was the triad of stars over a single bar. the insignia of a Colonel, senior grade.

"Those are yours now." The faint crease of determination appeared on Ackerson's face. "I'm not going to have my right-hand man taking orders from NCO drill instructers. You're going to be running the the entire show, Colonel Mantadurru."


	3. HIPNO III

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 2:

HIPNO-III

**1950 HOURS, DECEMBER 27, 2485(IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**ZETA MULRADIS SYSTEM, PLANET LIANDRIS BETA, CAMP CURRAHEE**

Kikoji watched the incoming Herons. The blocky, jet-powered craft were so distant they were only specks against the setting sun. He hit the magnification on his prototype of the SPI armor, and saw lines of fire tracing their reentry vectors. They would touch down in three minutes.

In the last six months he had developed a training regime tougher than the original HIPNO program. He had created obstacle courses, firing ranges, classrooms, mess halls, and dormitories from what had been jungle and scrub plain.

He had received every piece of equipment he had requested from NavSpecWep Section 1. Guns, ammunition, dropships, tanks--even samples of Furian technology and weaponry had appeared as if by sleight of hand.

All personnel were accounted for: six dozen handpicked drill instructors, physical therapists, doctors, nurses, psychologists, and the all-important cooks...all here except the most critical person, who was now on the incoming transports: Senior Chief Petty Officer Domovoi Kuran.

Kuran had, a dozen years ago, trained the first of the Hipnos. He would be invaluable in preparing the new breed of HIPNO-III, but he wasn't going to be the solution to all Kikoji's problems.

After poring over every detail of the new recruits' files, Kikoji discovered they didn't match the perfect psychological and genetic markers set by Dr. Kalsonai's original selection protocols. Colonel Ackerson had warned him they had to draw from a "less statistically robust" group. These recruits wouldn't be anything like himself or Jesuit.

And this would only add to a long list of challenges. With a final target class four times larger than the HIPNO-II's, a severely truncated training schedule, and the need for these Hipnos in the war increasing every month, Kikoji, in fact, expected a disaster.

The Heron transports swooped down on final approch and angled their thrusters. The sod on the parade field rippled like velvet. One by one they gingerly touched down.

Although the prototype SPI armor wasn't designed to bear rank insignia, he nonetheless felt the weight of his new Colonel stars. They pressed down on him as if they were a ton each, as if the weight of the entire war and future of Pyxis Priea rested squarely on his chest. Which it did.

"Sir?" a voice whispered in his COM.

The voice belonged to the artificial intelligence Unending Summer. It was officially assigned to the planetary survey team stationed in the northern section of the peninsula.

Kikoji wasn't sure why Colonel Ackerson had insisted that Camp Currahee be built next to the facility. He _was _sure, however, there had been a reason.

"Go ahead, Summer."

"Updated details on the candidates available," it said.

"Thank you."

"Thank me after your so-called test, sir." Unending Summer terminated transmission with a hiss of static that sounded like angry bees.

Cajoled by Section 1 brass, Unending Summer had agreed to devote 9 percent of its runtime to the HIPNO-III project. The AI was of the 'smart' variety, which meant there were no limits on its knowledge capacity or creativity. Despite its occasional theatrics, Kikoji was grateful for its help.

Kikoji blinked and accessed the candidates' data on his HUD. Each name had a serial number and linked to background files. There were 497 of them, a collection of four-, five-, and six-year-old Kedrian and Basitin younglings that he somehow had to forge into a fighting force unparralleled in the history of warfare.

The hatch of the nearest Heron opened with a hiss, and a tall wolf strode out.

Dom had aged well. His trim body looked chiseled from ironwood, but the fur was now silver, and there were deep creases around his eyes and a set of ragged scars that ran brow to chin.

"Chief," Kikoji resisted the urge to snap to attention as Kuran saluted. As odd as it felt, Kikoji was now his commanding officer. He returned the salute.

"Senior Chief Petty Officer Kuran reporting for duty, sir."  
After the botched HIPNO-II program, Chief Kuran had, at his request, been reassigned to active duty. He'd fought the ruthless Lady Furia on five worlds, and been awarded two Purple Hearts.

"You were briefed on the flight?"

"Completely," Kuran said. As he looked Kikoji over in his SPI armor, emotions played over his face: awe, approval, and resolve. "We'll get these new recruits trained, sir."

That was precisely the response Kikoji had hoped for. Kuran was a legend among Hipnos. He had tricked, trapped, and tortured them as children. They all hated, and then learned to admire, the wolf. He had taught them how to fight--and how to win.

"Do they let you drink now?" Kuran asked.

"Chief?"

"A bad joke, sir. We might both need one before this day is over," he said. "The new trainees are, well, sir, a little wild. I don't know if either of us is ready for _this._"  
He turned to the Herons, inhaled, and yelled, "Recruits, fall out!"

Kids streamed off dropship ramps. Hundreds tromped onto the field, screaming, and throwing clumps of soil and grass at one another. After being cooped up for hours, they went wild. A few, however, milled near the ships, dark circles under their eyes, and they huddled together. Adult handlers herded them onto the grass.

"You've read _Lord of the Flies_, sir?" Kuran muttered.

"I have," Kikoji replied. "But your analogy will not hold. These children will have guidance. They will have discipline. And they have one thing no ordinary children have, not even the HIPNO-II candidates. Motivation."

Kikoji linked his armor's COM to the camp loudspeakers. He cleared his throat and the sound rumbled over the field like thunder.

Nearly five hundred crazed children stopped in their tracks, fell silent, and turned, amazed, at the panther in the stylized black armor.

"Attention, recruits," Kikoji said, standing akimbo. "I am Colonel Mantadurru. You have all endured great hardships to be here. I know each and every one of you has lost your loved ones on Jericho II, Archon V, and Rapturous Ark. Lady Furia has made orphans of you all."

Every kid stared at him, some with tears now gleaming in their eyes, others with pure, burning hatred.

"I am going to give you a chance to learn how to fight, a chance to become the best soldiers the Empire has ever produced, a chance to destroy Furia's army. I am giving you a chance to be like me: a Hipno."

The kids crowded before him, close...but none actually dared touch the shimmering pitch black armor.

"We cannot accept everyone, though," Kikoji continued. "There are five hundred of you. We have three hundred training slots. So tonight, Senior Chief Petty Officer Kuran"--he nodded at the Chief--"has devised a way to separate those who truly want this opportunity from those who do not."

Kikoji handed him a tablet reader. "Chief?"

To his credit, Dom registered shock for only a split second. He scanned the tablet, frowned, but nodded. "Yes, sir," he whispered.

Kuran yelled at the children, "You want to be Hipnos? Then get back on those ships."

They stood, shocked, staring at him.

"No? I guess we found some washouts. You." He pointed to one child at random. "You. And you."

The chosen kids looked at each other, at the ground, and then shook their heads.

"No?" Kuran said. "Then get on those Herons."

They did so, and so did the others, a slow shuffling procession.

"Drill instructors," Kuran yelled.

Three dozen NCO's snapped to attention.

"You will find Eagle Wing aerial descent units on the field. Load them ASAP and make sure your trainees are properly fitted. Their safe deployment is now _your_ responsibility."

The DI's nodded and ran toward the bundled Eagle Wing backpacks.

Kuran turned back to Kikoji. "You're going to make them drop?" He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "At night?"

"The Eagles are the safest drop units."

"With respect, sir, some of them are only four years old."

"Motivation, Chief. If they can do this, they'll be ready for what we have to put them through." Kikoji watched the Herons fire their jets and scorch the grass. "But just in case," he added, "deploy all dropships to recover the candidates. There may be accidents."

Kuran exhaled deeply. "Yes, sir." He started for the nearest Heron.

"Chief," Kikoji said. "I'm sorry that order had to come from you."

"I understand." Kuran replied. "You're their CO. You have to inspire and command their respect. I'm their drill instructor. I get to be their worst nightmare." He gave Kikoji a crooked smile and climbed aboard.

Part II

Shane clung to the plastic loops on the side of the Heron's hull. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the other kids--packed so close he couldn't have fallen if he let go. The roar of the Heron's jets was deafening, but still he could hear his heart hammering in his chest.

This was the end of a journey that had started years ago. He'd heard jets like this when it started, the jets of the light freighter as it rocketed away from Archon V. It had been crowded on that ship, too...filled with refugees trying to get as far away, as fast as they could, from the monsters.

Only one in every six ships made it.

Sometimes Shane wished he hadn't lived and seen the monsters kill his father, to witness his sister and mother raped. He wished he could have burned with the rest of the planet.

When the Navy man had come to visit him in the orphanage and asked if Shane wanted to get even with them, he immediately volunteered. No matter what it took, he would kill all of the Furians.

They had given him lots of tests, the written kind, blood tests, and then a monthlong space trip as the Navy man collected more and more volunteers.

Shane had thought the testing was over when they finally got into the Herons and came to this new place, but he'd barely touched the ground when they'd been shoved back inside and sent back into the air.

He'd gotten a glimpse of the one in charge. He wore armor like Shane had seen in fairy tale books: the Black Knight who fought dragons. That's what Shane wanted. He was going to wear armor like that one day and kill all the monsters.

"Check your straps," an old Navy man barked at him and the other kids.

Shane tugged at the black backpack that they'd put on him three minutes ago. It weighed almost as much as him, and the straps had been pulled so tight they cut into his ribs.

"Report any looseness," the man shouted over the roar of the engines. None of the twenty other kids said anything.

"Recruits, stand by," the man barked. He listened into his headphones and then a green light blinked on a panel near his head. The man punched numbers into a keypad.

The back of the Heron hissed open, the ramp lowered, and a tornado screamed around shane. He yelled; so did the other children. They all pushed and shoved to the front of the Heron's bay.

The old Navy man stood by the open bay door, unafraid that only a meter to his rear was open sky. He regarded the squirming children with disgust.

Behind him, a dusky orange band marked the edge of the world. Twilight and lengthening shadows slipped over snowcapped mountains.

"You will form a line and jump," the man shouted. "You will count to ten and pull this." He reached up to his left shoulder, grasped the bright red handle their, and made a pretend pull motion. "Some confusion will be normal."

The kids stared at him. No one moved.

"If you cannot do this," the man said. "You cannot be a Hipno. It's your choice."

Shand looked at the other kids. They looked at him.

A rather attractive young female wolf stepped forward. "I'll go first, sir." she yelled.

"Good girl," he said. "Go right to the edge; hang on to the guide line."

She took two long strides to the opening, took three deep breaths, and jumped. The wind caught her, and she quickly vanished into the dark.

"Next!" the man shouted.  
All the kids, Shane included, slowly formed a line. He couldn't believe they were doing this. It was nuts.

The next boy got to the edge, looked down, and screamed. He fell backward, and scrambled away. "No!" he said. "No way!"

"Next!" the man called, and didn't give the fox cowering on the deck another glance.

The next one jumped without even looking. And the next. Then it was Shane's turn.

He couldn't move his legs.


	4. A Revelation

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 3:

A Revelation

**2025 HOURS, DECEMBER 27, 2485 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**ZETA MULRADIS SYSTEM, PLANET LIANDRIS BETA, **

**ABOARD HERON DROPSHIP, TEN KLICKS SOUTH OF CAMP CURRAHEE**

Then it was Shane's turn.

He couldn't move his legs.

"Hurry up, loser," the boy behind him said, and gave him a shove.

Shane stumbled forward--halting only a half step from the edge. He turned and stopped himself from shoving this kid back. The kid was a wolf, a good head taller than Shane, with scruffy, black fur. He had hair that fell forward, covering his eyes and making it seem that he was missing his forehead. Shane wasn't afraid of this creep.

He turned back to face the night rushing past him. _This _was what he was afraid of.

Shane's legs filled with freezing concrete. The rushing wind was so loud, he couldn't hear anything else anymore, not even his own hammering heart.

He couldn't move. He was stuck on the edge. There was no way he could jump.

But now he was so scared he couldn't even turn and around and wimp out, either. If he sat down, though, and then slowly inched back...

"Go, dumbass!" The creepy kid behind him pushed. Hard.

Shane fell off the ramp and into the night. He tumbled and screamed until he couldn't breathe.

Shane saw flashes of the dimming sunset, black ground, the white caps of the mountains, and stars. He threw up.

_Some confusion will be normal._

The red handle! He had to grab it. He reached up, but there was nothing there. He clawed at his shoulder until two fingers found purchase. He tugged.

There was a ripping sound, and something unraveled from his pack.

Shane jerked upright, his legs whipping after him, and his fangs snapped together from the sudden bone-jarring deceleration.

The spinning world stopped.

Gasping and blinking away his tears, Shane saw the last bit of amber light fade from the edge of the world, and the stars gently rock back and forth around him.

Overhead the wind whistled and rippled through a black canopy. Ropes connected Shane to this wing, and his hands instinctively grabbed them. As he pulled, the wind turned and angled in that direction. The sudden motion made him dizzy again, so he let go.

Shane squinted and made out shapes swimming around him: black on black like the lizards back on Archon V. Those had to be the other kids.

His face heated as he remembered how he'd chickened out at the last minute in the Heron...in front of everyone. Even that little wolf had jumped.

Shane had never wanted to be scared like that again. Maybe if he imagined that he wa already dead, then there would be nothing to be afraid of. It'd be like he'd died with his family on Archon.

He mustered this mental image--dead and nothing to fear--and to test it, he looked down. Past his dangling feet there was two-centimeter green square. After a moment, he realized it was the field where all the Herons had landed. Tiny lines snaked from the field illuminated by tiny firefly pinpoints.

"Nothing to be scared of," he whispered, trying to convince himself.

He forced himself to pull the ropes, to angle downward, and speed toward the green field.

Wind whipped through the black silk wing, and tore at Shane's face. He didn't care. He wanted down fast. Maybe if he was the first one down, he'd show everyone that he wasn't scared.

Shane saw tiny people and scorch marks where the Herons had burned the grass. And no other parachutes yet. He'd be first, and he'd land right in front of the Black Knight.

Shane hit the ground. His knees pistoned into his chest and knocked the wind out of him.

The black wing caught a breeze, jerked him back on his feet, and dragged him across the grass and dirt. He gasped for air, but he wasn't scared. He was angry that he'd look so stupid having to wrestle with this parachute.

The Eagle Wing hit the fence, and stuck there, fluttering.

Shane got up and unclipped himself from the harness. Something hot trickled down his legs. There was no way he'd been so scared he'd pissed himself. With dread, he looked. It was blood. The skin on the back of his legs was raw. He took a tentative step and fire crawled up both thighs.

He laughed. Blood or piss, what did it matter? He'd made it.

"Hey, dumbass. What's so funny?"

Shane turned and saw the kid who had pushed him. He lay on the grass, half-tangled in his harness.

Shane marched over to him, ignoring the pain in his legs.

The kid got to one knee and held out his hand to shake. "I'm Rob--"

Shane hit him square in the nose. Blood gushed from the kid's face and he reeled over.

He was going to pay for shoving him. He was the only one who knew that Shane had frozen on the edge and wimped out. He'd have to pay for that too.

Shane started pounding him with both fists. The wolf held up his arms to fend off the blows, but Shane got a few good ones in, skinning his knuckles.

Robert headbutted Shane, and he fell off. He stood, shook off his harness, then, growling, leapt onto Shane. They rolled on the grass, kicking and punching.

Shane heard a loud snap and he wasn't sure if it was his or Rob's bone breaking; he didn't care, he kept hitting and hitting until blood spilled into his eyes and he couldn't see anymore.

Large hands grabbed Shane and pulled him off. Still swinging, Shane connected with one of the Navy men, bruising the bone over his eye.

The man dropped him.

"Stand down!" barked a voice with godlike authority.

Shane blinked and wiped blood from his eyes. The silver furred wolf who had given the order to jump stood between him and the other kid.

The Navy man he'd hit pressed one hand to his swollen eye and said, "Chief, these two were going to kill each other."

"I see that," the old wolf said. He nodded approvingly at Shane, and then turned to Robert.

Robert ignored the old wolf and took a step toward Shane with his hands raised.

"I said STAND DOWN!"

Robert dropped his hands and staggered back as if he'd been struck.

"I think you're right, Sergeant," the older Navy wolf said. "They really might have killed each other." He smiled, but it wasn't a smile. It was more like he was baring his teeth. "Very good. That kind of fight left in them after their first jump? A night jump? My God, I only hope the rest of them are like this."

**0000 HOURS. JULY 19, 2533 (CIVILIAN CALENDAR) /**

**NARROW-BAND POINT-TO-POINT TRANSMISSION: ORIGIN**

**UNKNOWN; TERMINATION: SECTION ONE, OMEGA SECURE**

**ANTENNA ARRAY, KEIDRIAN EMPIRE LEGION HQ TAU CETI SYSTEM,**

**TAU CETI V**

///AUTOMATED REROUTE LEGION SHIP REG-96667

ABY/// FILE ACCESS GRANTED///WORM-PROTOCOL FIREWALL

ENABLED/FILE ERASED///

PLNB TRANSMISSION XX087R-XX

ENCRYPTION CODE: GAMMA

PUBLIC KEY: N/A

FROM: CODE NAME COALMINER

TO: CODE NAME SURGEON

SUBJECT: PROGRESS REPORT/OPERATION HYPODERMIC CLASSIFICATION: EYES ONLY, CODE-WORD *RESTRICTED* TOP SECRET (SECTION ONE X-RAY DIRECTIVE)

/FILE EXTRACTION-RECONSTITUTION COMPLETE/

/START FILE/

**I**NSTITUTIONAL RECORDS ALTERED AS PER INSTRUCTIONS.

**I**NITIAL CONTACT WITH BASE **AI** MADE**.** **H**ELPFUL, BUT I DON'T TRUST IT.

**P**ACKAGES DELIVERED. **S**ELECTION PROCESS STARTED. **O**PERATION UNDERWAY AND ON SCHEDULE.

**C**ANDIDATES EXHIBIT MARKED AGGRESSION WELL OUT OF BOUNDS OF THE **S**MITH-**K**ENSINGTON INDEX. **A**S MUCH WORK TRAINING THEM AS IT IS KEEPING THEM FROM MURDERING EACH OTHER. **T**HEY'RE REAL HELLCATS.

**C**OLONEL CLAIMS ALL UNDER CONTROL. **H**E HAS A PLAN FOR EVERYTHING. **U**NSURE WHERE HE'S GETTING THIS CONFIDENCE, BUT I DO BELIEVE HE KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING. **A**RE YOU SURPRISED?


	5. Debriefing

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 4:

Debriefing

**0900 HOURS, JULY 30, 2537 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \ ABOARD**

**LEGION **_**POINT VELOCITY**_**, LOCATION CLASSIFIED**

**(5 YEARS AFTER ALPHA COMPANY INDOCTRINATION)**

Colonel Mantadurru and SCPO Kuran had been escorted to this catwalk through a series of corridors and high-security biometric vaults into the bowels of the stealth cruiser _Point Velocity._

The security officers had then left them standing at attention on the catwalk, and sealed the vaultlike door behind them. Below the metal grating of the catwalk, the shadows swallowed all sound.

Three meters to Kikoji's left was a slightly curved white wall. No door. Beyond was Thor's Eye, the high-security conference room where he'd first been told of the HIPNO-III program by Colonel Ackerson.

'Think this is some Section One test?" Dom finally whispered. "Or maybe someone doesn't like getting news about the lousy selection results for the Beta Company candidates?"

"I'm not sure," Kikoji replied. "My requested upgrades for the Mark-II SPI armor were over budget."

Dom raised an eyebrow. "Where did you hear that?"

"The new AI talks alot."

" 'Deep Winter' " Dom muttered. "I wonder if AIs pick their own names, or if some officer in Section One does it."

Kikoji was about to offer his opinion when he noticed there now stood a door in the curved white wall. Colonel Ackerson stood there. "Gentlemen, join us." Ackerson then retreated into a brightly lit chamber.

Kikoji noticed that he hadn't met their eyes. That was always a bad sign.

They entered, and as he crossed the threshold, Kikoji felt static crawl over his skin. The concave illuminated walls of the chamber were disorienting. Kikoji focused on the center of the half-spherical room, on the black conference table. Two officers sat there, gazing at holographic screens that floated in the air over its surface.

Ackerson waved them closer.

A woman sat with her back to them; opposite her sat a middle-aged gentleman.

The man was gray and balding. The woman appeared older than regs permitted before mandatory retirement. Her osteoporotic slump, slender frail arms, and thinning white fur indicated extreme age.

Kikoji froze as he spotted the one- and three- star rank insignia on their collars and snapped off a salute. "Vice Admiral, ma'am." he said. "Rear Admiral, sir."

The Vice Admiral ignored Dom and scrutinized Kikoji. "Sit," she said, "both of you."

Kikoji didn't recognize either of these high-ranking officers, and they didn't bother to introduce themselves.

He did as he was ordered, as did Kuran. Even sitting, though, his back was ramrod straight, his chest out, and eyes forward.

"We were reviewing the record of your HIPNO-IIIs since they went operational nine months ago," she said. "Impressive."

The Rear Admiral gestured at floating holographic panes that contained after-action reports, still shots of battlefields filled with Furain corpses, and ship damage-assesment profiles. "The insurrection of Mamore," he said. "that nasty business at New Constantiople, actions in the Bonanza asteroid belt and the Far-Gone colony platforms, and half a dozen other engagements--this reads like the campaign record of a cracking good battalion, not a company of three hundred. Damned impressive."

"That was only a fraction of the HIPNO-III program potential," Colonel Ackerson said. His eyes stared at some distant point.

"I'm sorry, sir," Kikoji said. " 'Was'?"

The Vice Admiral stiffened. It was clear that she was not accustomed to her junior officers asking questions.

But Kikoji had to. These were his men and women they were talking about. He'd kept his eyes and ears open for news on Alpha Company, and had cultivated intelligence sources outside ONI, Section One, and Beta-5. Being Commandant of Camp Currahee had its priviledges, and he had learned how to use them. He managed to track his Hipnos during the last seven months, until his sources had mysteriously gone silent six days ago. Only the AI Unending Spring had given a clue as to their whereabouts: Operation PROMETHEUS.

"Tell me about the selection process for the next class of HIPNO-IIIs," the Vice Admiral asked Kikoji.

"Ma'am," Kikoji said, "we are operating under Colonel Ackerson's expanded selection criteria, but there are not enough age-appropriate genetic matches to meet the larger second-class target number."

"There _are_ sufficient genetic matches," Colonel Ackerson corrected. His face was impassively mask. "What's missing are data to find additional matches. We need to proscribe mandatory genetic screening in the outer colonies. Those untapped populations are--"

"That's the last thing we need in the outer colonies," the Rear Admiral said. "We're just getting a handle on a near civil war. You tell an O.C. they got to register their kids' genes, and they'll all be reaching for their rifles."

The Vice Admiral steepled her withered hands. "Say it is part of a vaccine program. We take a microscopic sample as we inject the children. Inform no one."

The Rear Admiral looked dubious, but offered no further comment.

"Go on, Lieutenant Colonel," she said.

"We have identified 375 candidates," Kikoji said. "Slightly less than we started with for Alpha Company, but we have learned from our mistakes. We will be able to graduate a much higher percentage this time."

He nodded toward Dom to give the Chief the credit he richly deserved. Kuran sat completely still and Kikoji saw that he wore his poker face.

"But," the Rear Admiral said, "that's nowhere near the one thousand projection for the second wave."

A brief scowl played over Ackerson's lip. "No, sir."

The Vice Admiral set her hands on the table and leaned closer to Kikoji. "What if we loosen the new genetic selection criteria?"

Kikoji took note of the "we" in her question. There was a subtle shift in the power structure at the table. With a single word, the Vice Admiral had made Kikoji a part of their group.

"Our new bioaugumentation protocols target a very specific genetic set. Any deviation from that set would geometrically increase the failure rate," Kikoji said. The thought of dozens of Hipnos being tortured and ultimately crippled as they lay helpless in a medical bay filled him with revulsion. He managed to contain the feeling.

The Vice Admiral raised one threadbare brow. "You've done your homework, Colonel."

"However, as our augumentation technology improves," Ackerson said, "one day we will be able to expand the selection parameters, maybe to include the entire general population."

"But not today, Colonel," the Rear Admiral said, and sighed. "So, we're back to about three hundred HIPNO-IIIs. That will have to do, then."

Kikoji wanted to correct him--three hundred new Hipnos _plus_ those in Alpha Company.

"Let's move on to the review of Alpha and Operation PROMETHEUS," the Vice Admiral said, and her face darkened.

Colonel Ackerson cleared his throat. "Operation PROMETHEUS occurred on the Furian manufacturing site designated as K7-49."

A holographic asteroid materialized, drifting over the table, a rock with molten cracks that made a spiderweb pattern over its surface.

"K7-49 was discovered when the prowler _Blade's Edge_ managed to attach a telemetry probe on an enemy frigate during the Battle of New Harmony," Ackerson said. "They then followed the craft through hyperspace, the first and only time this technology has worked, I might add, and they discovered this rock seventeen light-years past the Empire's outer boundary."

The image magnified, revealing midaltitude images of factories on the surface that belched smoke and cinder, and showed that the volcanic fissures were canals of flowing molten metal. A gossamer lattice surrounded the asteroid, tiny lights winked on the filaments, and black specks drifted near.

"Specral inhancement," the Rear Admiral said, "showed us what they're using all that metal for."

The view shifted closer. The latticework girders were hundred-meter-wide beams, and the black specks appeared to be the bones of whales in orbit over K7-49--a dozen partially constructed Furian warships.

"K7-49 is one large orbital shipyard," Ackerson explained. "All the apparent volcanism is artificial, created by these." He tapped his tablet once more. Thirty infared dots appeared on the surface of the asteroid. "High-output plasma reactors that liquefy metallurgical components, which are refined, shaped, and then transported via gravity beams for final assembly."

"The PROMETHEUS op was a high-risk insertion onto the surface of K7-49," the Rear Admiral explained. "Three hundred Hipnos hit dirt at 0700, July 27. Their mission was to disable as many of these reactors as possible--enough so the liquid contents of the facility would solidify and permanently clog their capacity to produce alloy."

Colonel Ackerson then tapped the holographic display. "S.T.A.R.S system and TEAMCOM recorded Alpha Company's process."

A handful of the hot infrared points on the asteroid's surface flared and then cooled to black.

"Initial resistance was light." Ackerson tapped a button and a new window opened.

On his display, Hipnos in SPI armor systems moved, their camouflaged patterns shifting imperfectly against the molten metal and black smoke of the factory. Kikoji wished his suggested upgrades for the SPI armor's software had been implemented before Alpha had graduated. There was a burp of suppressed submachine-gun fire, and a pod of Fodder salve workers fell dead.

"After two days," the Admiral said, "seven reactors were rendered inoperative and a counterforce was finally organized by existing Furian units."

A new video feed appeared.

The vulturelike Scarfers moved in squads through large courtyards, and filed over archways. They were more organized than their Fodder counterparts, and they worked in fire teams, methodically clearing section by section. But Kikoji knew his Hipnos wouldn't be cornered. _They _would be the hunters.

Thirty Scarfers moved into a circular court, where Technicians tended a churning pool of molten steel. The Scarfers cleared every hiding spot, and then started to cross, warily scanning the rooftops.

Flagstones exploded and sent the Scarfers sprawling. Sniper fire took out the stunned aliens before they could get their shields in place.

"The Furian counterresponse was neutralized," the Rear Admiral continued, "and over the next three days, Alpha Company destroyed thirteen more reactors."

The large infrared asteroid-wide view changed. Two-thirds of the surface had cooled to dull red.

"But," the Rear Admiral said, "a massive counterforce appeared in orbit and descended on to the surface."

Colonel Ackerson opened three more holographic windows: HIPNO-IIIs engaged Therons on the ground, trading fire from cover. Siren fliers swooped down from building tops--two Hipnos fired shoulder-launched SAMs and stopped the air assault cold.

"On day seven," the Admiral said, "additional Furian reinforcements arrived."

The video from a helmet camera showed a dozen HIPNO-IIIs limping and falling on a smoldering landscape of twisted metal. There was no unit cohesion. No two-man teams covering one another. In the heat-blurred background, Therons took up superior positions with good cover.

"By now," the Rear Admiral said, "eighty-nine percent of the reactors had been destroyed. Sufficient cooling had occurred to permanently shut the operation down. Alpha Company was cut of from their NEBUCHADNEZZER exfiltration craft."

The window showing the HIPNO-IIIs tilted sideways as the owner of the helmet cam fell. Ackerson rotated the holographic display 90 degrees to rectify the image.

Three Hipnos remained standing, firing suppressing bursts from their PA6-Ls behind a crashed Siren; then they broke from the cover and sprinted--a second before the flier was destroyed by an energy mortar. IFF tags at the bottom of the screen identified these Hipnos as Rob, Shane, and, carried between them, Jane. She had been the first candidate to jump that first night of indoctrination.

TEAMBIO appeared in another window. Rob's and Shane's blood pressure was close to the hypertensive limit. Jane's biosigns were flatlined.

Seeing them like this...it felt like someone had driven a metal spike into Kikoji's chest. A pair of hulking Furian Seekers blocked the Hipnos' retreat. They raised their energy grenade launchers.

Robert unloaded his assault rifle at them, which hardly made the pair flinch as it spanged off their thick armor. Shane switched to his sniper rifle and shot through one Seeker's unarmed midsection, and then pumped two rounds into the other's vulnerable abdomen. They both went down, but still moved, only momentarily incapacitated.

Theron fire teams, meanwhile, popped up on either side and unleashed a hellstorm of exploding needles and plasma.

Robert caught so many needles to his chest, he looked like a purple pincushion. Screaming, he managed to reload and spray his ML0-B on full auto at the Theron who had shot him. TEAMBIO showed his heart in full arrest, but he still grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin, and lobbed it at the enemy fire team...and then the needles exploded, blowing him apart.

Shane screamed, a primal, hellish sound that chilled Kikoji to the marrow, as he watched his the pieces of his friend rain the ground around him. He turned back to the Theron fireteam and unloaded on them.

More Therons appeared, surrounding the lone Hipno.

Shane's rifle clacked, empty. He pulled out an N3 pistol and continued to fire.

An energy mortar detonated like a small sun two meters away.

Shane tumbled through the air, and landed prone, unmoving.

"And that's all we have." Ackerson said.

Kikoji continued to stare at the screen of static, his heart racing, half expecting the feed to go live again and show Shane gather up Jane, and together they'd limp off the battlefield, wounded, but alive.

Seven years Kikoji had trained them, and grown to respect them. Now, they were dead. Their sacrifice had saved countless lives, and yet Kikoji still felt like he'd lost everything. He wanted to look away from the screen, but he couldn't.

This was his fault. He had failed them. His training hadn't prepared them. He should have rectified the flaws in their Mark I photoreactive suits and fixed them faster.

Dom reached over _and_ tapped the Colonel's tablet. The display mercifully blanked and faded away.

Ackerson shot Dom a glare, but Kuran ignored him.

"Recent drone recon shows the entire complex cold," the Rear Admiral said. "No more ships will be built at K7-49."

"Just to clarify," Kikoji whispered, and then he paused to clear his throat. "There were no survivors of Operation PROMETHEUS?"

"It is regrettable," the Vice Admiral said with the slightest sadness in her voice. "But we would do it again if presented with a similar opportunity, Colonel. Such a facility within two weeks journey of the empire's outer colonies...your Hipnos prevented the building of a Furian armada that would have resulted in nothing less than the massacre of trillions. They are heroes."

Ashes. That's all Kikoji felt.

He glanced at Dom. There was no emotion on his face. The Basitin held his pain well.

"I understand, ma'am." Kikoji said.

"Good," she said, all trace of pity ad now evaporated from her tone. "I've put you in for a promotion. Your soldiers performed well above the program's projected parameters. You are to be commended."

Kikoji felt the only thing he deserved was a court martial, but he held his tongue.

"Now I want you to focus and accelerate the training of the Beta Company Hipnos, Force Colonel" she said. "We have a war to win."


	6. War Games

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 5:

War Games

**1620 HOURS, AUGUST 24, 2541 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**ZETA MULRADIS SYSTEM, NEAR CAMP CURRAHEE, PLANET LIANDRIS BETA**

**(FOUR YEARS AFTER HIPNO-III ALPHA COMPANY OPERATION PROMETHEUS)**

Bullets peppered the dirt near Bludshot's head. He pushed farther back into the hole, hugging the ground, trying to be as flat as possible.

The irony was Team Foxtrot had done everything by the book. Maybe that was the lesson today: going by the book doesn't always work.

Bludshot had led them through the forest, evading snipers and patrols of drill instructors waiting to jump them. They made it too easy.

That should have been his first clue. The DIs never made things easy for them.

When they'd come to the open field he'd checked the perimeter. No one had been there. He'd waited, though, and checked and rechecked. DIs in their Mark-II SPI armor were hard to spot even with the thermal imagers in his field binoculars.

Bludshot had then warily led his team onto the field and toward the pole with the bell. That was the mission: ring the bell. They had two hours to find and ring the thing to qualify for continued Hipno training. Simple.

There were 418 candidates, and only three hundred slots. Not all of them could be Hipnos.

His mistake had been leading his entire team into the clear. They'd all been to eager.

It got them ambushed.

Machine-gun fire from the treetops rained down on them. Anique and Jamie, in flanking positions, were immediately taken out. Only Bludshot and Ruby had made it to the muddy hole. It was just deep enough to keep from getting shot.

"This is crazy," Ruby spat through her mud-covered face. "We gotta do something."

"They have to run out of ammo sooner or later," Blud told her. "Or one of the other teams will show up and get us out of this jam."

"Sure they will," Ruby said. "After _they _ring the bell." She squinted at the trees. "There has to be a way out of this. Automated gun turrets up there. That's why they didn't show up on the thermals."

That's what the Force Col. was always saying about machines: "_They easily fool the unsuspecting...but they're also easy to break._"

The guns wouldn't kill them--but they'd sure as hell stop them cold. With only gray sweat suits and light boots for protection, the stun rounds hit so hard they numbed whatever they hit: legs or arms or God help you if you got nailed in the groin or an eye.

"Nuts to this." Ruby rose into a crouching stance.

Bludshot grabbed her ankle, pulled her down, and punched her in the gut.

Ruby doubled, but she recovered fast--rolled over Blud and got him in a stranglehold.

Bludshot shrugged out of the lock and held up both hands. "Come on," he said. "Truce. There has to be a way out of this--a way with us not getting shot."

Ruby glared at him, but then said, "What do you have in mind?"

**Kikoji's POV**

"What is the point of this 'exercise,' Brigadier?" Deep Winter asked.

The AI holographic projection of an old falcon took a step toward the bank of monitors and touched the screen showing a boy and a girl pinned by machinegun fire. A crackle of ice spread across the plastic.

Full Bird Colonel Domovoi Kuran stood, and swatted at a mosquito, frowing as he glanced back and forth among the two dozen displays in Camp Currahee's control center. The air conditioner had broken, and both Kuran's and Kikoji's uniforms were soaked with sweat.

Kikoji said, "Our candidates are doing well in their studies?"

Deep Winter turned his glacier-blue gaze to the Brigadier. "You've seen my reports. You know they are. Since you announced their grades were a factor in the selection process, they practically kill themselves every night to learn everything before they pass out. Frankly, I don't see--"

"I suggest," Kikoji said, "you not worry about seeing the point of my battlefield drills, and focus on keeping the candidates on track with their studies."

What could and AI possibly know what it was like on a real mission? Bullets zinging so close over you head that you didn't so much as hear them but _felt _them pass. Or what it was like to get hit, but still have to keep going, bleeding, because if you didn't everyone on your team would die?

Alpha Company had lost their team cohesion on Operation PROMETHEUS. Kikoji vowed that would not happen with Beta Company.

Deep Winter ruffled his cape, and a flurry of illusionary snow swirled about the control room. The AI was likely programmed with human safety protocols, so it was natural for it to be concerned.

"We don't know what they're capable of," Kikoji finally told Deep Winter. "Stick with the by-the-book drills and we'll never find out, either. But put them in an impossible situation, and maybe they'll surprise us."

"Short definition of a Hipno." Dom remarked.

That's what people had siad about the HIPNO-IIs who were the genetic cream of the crop, and wore skeletal-grafted armor, as per Keidrian Genetic Warfare Protocol. They _could_ do the impossible, and do it alone. The HIPNO-IIIs, though, would have to work together to survive. Be more family than fire team.

"Still," Deep Winter whispered. "This is cruel. They will break."

"I'd rather break them," Kikoji said, "than let them go out into the field without ever experiencing an untractable tactical situation."

"Personally, I don't think that these kids _can _be broken," Dom said, more to himself than to Kikoji or Deep Winter. His gaze now firmly fixed on Bludshot and Ruby. "Ten years old and these two have so much grit they scare the bejesus out of even me."

"Look," Deep Winter said. "What are those two doing now?"

Kikoji smiled. "I think...the impossible."

**Bludshot's POV**

"Let's go over the plan one more time," Blud said.

Ruby huddled next to him in the mud hole. "Why? You think I'm stupid?"

Bludshot didn't say anything for a moment, then: "Those turrets are probably using radar to target. So we fool them."

"And if they're using thermals?" Ruby asked.

Bludshot shrugged. "Then I hope they nail you first."

She grimly nodded and hefted a muddy rock. "So we throw these."

"Into their cone of fire," Blud said. "The small angle will make them hard to track. Mabye tie up their brains for a fraction of a second more."

"Then we run."

"Evasive maneuvers. Try not to step on Anique and Jamie."

"Got it."

Bludshot grasped his rock tighter and pumped it once, working up his courage. He and Ruby knocked their fists together.

They stood at the same time--chucked both rocks.

Bludshot heard gunfire, but didn't pause to look; he ran right, then left, he rolled and tumbled and then sprinted like crazy for the tree line.

He felt the dirt near him exploding with tiny puffs..

Fire cut into his thigh and his leg lost all feeling. He pushed off with his good foot, and landed hard on his stomach in the tall grass by the acacia trees.

Staccato bullets dotted the ground centimeters from his prone form...but missed him. He laughed. He was just inside their minimum angle of fire. Stupid machines.

He rolled over and spotted Ruby, panting and crouched in the grass. Blud waved to her, and then pointed up into the treetops. Ruby gave the thumbs-up signal.

Bludshot hopped on one leg. Some of the feeling was coming back...mostly the feeling of pain. He stomped it out. He couldn't let it slow him down. The drill instructors might show up any second.

He pulled himself up into the lower branches of one of the acacias that shook with gunfire. He took great care to avoid the spines on the tree's trunk. He climbed up ten meteres.

On a platform sat an old M202 XP machine gun hooked up to an automated fire control. It twitched back and forth, waiting for a target to present itself.

Bludshot reached up and disconnected the wires from the radar array, and the the power supply. The gun froze.

He climbed onto the platform and unscrewed the securing bolts. He pushed the gun off the platform, where it made a satisfying _thud_ as it impacted the muddy ground.

He climbed down. He grabbed the machine gun, cleared the barrel, and stripped off the remaining autofire control. He test-fired a burst of three rounds into the tree trunk. "Awesome," he said.

Ruby was down from her tree as well, machine gun balanced on her shoulder. She moved onto the field to help Anique and Jamie get up. "Come on," she said. "We still got a bell to ring."

Anique boosted Bludshot and then Ruby to make a living ladder, and then Jamie clambered up and clanged the bell.

Nothing had ever sounded so good.

They all climbed down. "Now for some payback..." Bludshot said. "Anique, Jamie, take up spotting positions" --he pointed-- "in those trees there and there."

They nodded and ran off to the trees.

"You and me," he said to Ruby, "will set these," he patted his machine gun, "up there." He pointed to a large boulder. "I'll be there." He nodded to the tall grass on the edge of the field.

"And do what?" she asked.

"Well, we've cleared the field and rung the bell. I figure with the other teams getting here and ringing the bell in record times..."

Ruby grinned. "The DIs will come running and gunning."

The DIs at Camp Currahee were a mix of handpicked NCOs, medics, and the washouts from the first Hipno class. The washouts always went out of their way to make the lives of the Beta Hipno trainees hell. Two years ago, Team X-Ray vanished on a routine exercise up north. A lot of the kids said there were ghosts up there---floating eyes in the jungle---but everyone really believed the DIs had done something and covered it up. ONI even came in and fenced the place off. Called it "Sector Zero" and declared it "absolutely off limits."

It was time to teach those DIs they couldn't get away with bullying Beta Company.

Jamie whistled from the treetops.

Teams Romeo and Echo slinked into view. Bludshot signaled them and explained the plan. Teams Zulu and Lima joined them, and soon two dozen trainees were scattered in the trees and grass, watching and waiting.

It took only fifteen minutes before a whistle sounded at three o'clock. There was a subtle motion in the grass on the edges of the field.

Bludshot signaled his scouts to fall back while Ruby maneuvered to get a better line. Bludshot ran in a crouch to intercept.

He spotted three targets, their SPI armor mimicking the grass well, but not well enough to cover the parted grass at their feet. They turned to face Ruby.

Blud fired, spraying at knee level where the armor was weakest.

Three outlines crushed the grass, screaming and convulsing as the rubber bullets pelted them.

Ruby joined him and opened fire.

When the screaming stopped, Bludshot moved in and peeled off their armor, revealing three very dazed DIs.

They had not identified themselves, so by the rules of engagement they were fair targets. Anique ran up and helped him and Ruby strip the bodies.

"Pistols and PA6-Ls, both with stun ammunition," Anique said.

Ruby held up a double-handful of grenades, and smiled. "Flashbangs."

"Now," Blud said, grinning, "this really gets interesting."

**Later that night...**

The moon had come out and set. The grass was wet with dew and Bludshot's stomach growled so loud he thought it might give away his position in the dark.

Five waves of DIs had come, and been neutralized by a now armed, armored, and fully equipped Hipno Trainee Defense Team. The instructors were tied up in the middle of the field by the bell. Hostages.

Blud and the other Hipnos were working together like they never had before. And they were winning. He was hungry, wet, and cold, but Bludshot wouldn't have traded places with anyone in the entire galaxy.

He heard a rustle in the tall grass, turned, machine gun aimed waist high.

There was nothing there, and nothing on the thermals, either. He must be getting jumpy.

A hand clamped on his shoulder, while another hand wrenched the machine gun from his grasp.

FBC Kuran stood over him. At his side was Brig. Mantadurru.

Bludshot half-expected Kuran to shoot him right there.

"I think that's quite enough," Dom growled.

The Brigadier knelt beside Bludshot and whispered, "Good work, son."


	7. Graduation Day

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 6:

Graduation Day

**0420 HOURS, FEBRUARY 19, 2551 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**ABOARD LNC **_**MERCIFUL**_**, INTERSTELLAR SPACE,**

**SECTOR K-009**

**(FIVE YEARS AFTER HIPNO-III BETA COMPANY OPERATION **

**TORPEDO AT REGULUS BETA)**

Kikoji walked the empty corridors of the LNC _Merciful_ and entered the atrium. Blazing lights overhead mimicked a realistic sun. Air recirculators made the leaves of the small grove of white oaks rustle. He smelled lavender, a scent he hadn't experienced since he was a child.

The most extravagent feature of the _Merciful_, however, was the ten-meter curving window in the atrium--something utterly unheard of on any other ship in any of the LEGION's fleets.

But then the _Merciful _was unlike any other ship in the fleet.

Naval officers described her as "the ugliest thing to ever float in zero gee." The ship had been built before there had been major rebel activity in the colonies. A private medical corporation had purchased two scrapped repair stations--each a square kilometer plate of scaffolding, cranes, and cargo trams. These two plates had been connected to make an off-centered "sandwich," and within, a state-of-the-art hospital and research facility had been constructed.

In 2495, the LNC had commandered the vessel, added engines, minimal defense systems, six fission reactors, and a Stien-Fujita translight system, and transformed the _Merciful_ into the largest mobile battlefield hospital in history.

While most of the Naval officers agreed that she was unsightly, every enlisted Marine Kikoji had ever spoken with declared her the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen.

The _Merciful_ had taken on mythical proportions with the men and women who had to fight and die on the front lines. She had been damaged, but had survived, eighteen major Naval battles with rebellion forces and four encounters with Furia's hordes. The ship's staff of Basitin and the technology they had at their disposal had a reputation of saving lives, in many cases literally bringing the dead back to life.

Today the ship had been docked in interstellar space--essentially the middle of nowhere--by order of Vice Admiral Parangosky. And while the thousands of critically ill patients could not be evacuated, the eight decks surrounding Docking Cluster Bravo had been cleared of all personnel while ONI moved in their equipment and staff. The HIPNO-III program had to remain under a cloak of absolute secrecy.

Kikoji wished the _Merciful_ lived up to her reputation, because today the lives of his Hipno potentials were at stake.

His candidates had had to endure so much in the last year. To accelerate the program's timetable, puberty had been artificially induced. Body-growth hormone as well as cartilage, muscle, and bone supplements had been introduced into their diet, and the children had metamorphosed into near-adult stature within nine months.

They had become clumsy in their new, larger bodies, and had struggled to relearn how to run, shoot, jump, and fight. And today, they'd face their most dangerous test. They would either become irrepairably disfigured and horribly crippled, die, or be transformed into Hipnos.

No, that wasn't right. While these kids didn't have the heightened speed of strength of a Hipno, they already had the commitment, drive, and spirit. They already were Hipnos.

Kikoji heard boots clicking down the corridor, then muffled steps crossing the atrium lawn.

"General, sir?"

A young crimson coast fox and his nearly identical, albiet smaller and female, companion approached with the long, loping gaits of people who had spent much time in microgravity. They wore standard Naval uniforms bearing the stripes of a petty officer second class. Both had neat, trimmed hair and dark eyes.

Kikoji had to pull a few strings to keep the Beta Company survivors of Regulus Beta with him. Colonel Ackerson had wanted Bludshot for his own private operations. And the ever-silent Ruby had narrowly avoided an unfit-for-duty classification and permanent reassignment to ONI psych branch for 'evaluation.'

He'd had to appeal to Vice Admiral Parangosky, claiming he needed Hipnos to train Hipnos.

Over Ackerson's protests, she had agreed.

The result: Bludshot and Ruby had become Kikoji's right and left hands over these last years, and Gamma Company were the finest Hipnos ever.

Bludshot and Ruby spent so much of their time in their SPI armor, it took Kikoji a moment to recognize his attaches. Their armor, along with the rest of Gamma Company's SPI suits, were being refitted with new photoreactive coatings to boost their camouflaging properties. There were other experimental refits--gel ballistic layers, upgraded software suites, and other functions--that would hopefully be working within a year's time.

Bludshot and Ruby snapped off simultaneous salutes. Kikoji returned them. "Report."

"The candidates are ready to board, sir." Bludshot said.

Kikoji got up and the three of them walked back down the corridor and into Docking Cluster Bravo. It was the size of a small canyon with the capacity to cycle a fleet of dropships simultaneously through its massive air-lock system. There was ample space for triage and trams that could whisk an entire company of wounded soldiers to emergency surgical faculties.

Air locks screamed and thre was a sudden gust of fresh air. Dozens of bay doors parted and Herons rolled into the bay on steam-powered beds.

The Herons' rear ramps lowered and the Hipno candidates filed out in orderly rows.

Kikoji had briefed them about the procedures. They'd be sedated and injected with chemical cocktails and surgically altered to give them the strength of three normal soldiers, decrease their neural reaction time, and enhance their durability.

It was the final step in their transformation to Hipnos.

It was graduation day.

He'd briefed them on the risks, too. He had shown them the archived videos of the results of the bioaugmentation phase of the HIPNO-II program, how more than half of those candidates had 'washed out'--either dying from the procedure or becoming so badly deformed they couldn't stand.

This would not happen to the HIPNO-IIIs with the new medical protocols, but Kikoji had wanted one final test.

Not one of the 330 candidates had opted out of the program.

Kikoji had had to petition Colonel Ackerson for thirty extra slots for this final phase. He simply didn't have it in him to randomly cut thirty--when evey last one of them was willing and ready to fight. Ackerson had gladly granted his request.

Kikoji stood and saluted as the line of candidates passed him.

They marched by, returning his salute, heads held high, and chests out. On average only twelve years old, they looked closer to fifteen with the sculpted musculature of human Olympic athletes; many had hard-won scars; and all had an ineffable, confident air about them.

They were warriors. Kikoji had never felt so proud.

The last candidate lingered, then halted before him. It was Adrian, serial number G099, leader of Team Saber. He was one of the fiercest, smartest, and best leaders in the class. His brown hair was slightly over regulation length, but Kikoji was inclined to let it slide, today of all days.

Adrian snapped off a precise salute. "Sir, Hipno candidate G099 requesting permission to speak, sir."

"Granted," Kikoji said, and finished his protracted salute.

"Sir, I..." Adrian's voice cracked.

Many of the males had problems with their vocal cords, still recovering from the rapidly induced puberty.

"I just wanted to let you know," he continued, "what an honor it's been to train under you, Colonel Kuran, and Petty Officers Bludshot and Ruby. If I don't make it today, I wanted you to know that I wouldn't have done anything differently, sir."

"The honor has been mine," Kikoji said. He held out his hand.

Adrian stared at it a moment, then he grasped it, and they shook.

"I'll see you on the other side," Kikoji said.

Adrian nodded and left, catching up to the rest of the candidates.

Bludshot and Ruby both nodded their approvals.

"They're ready," Kikoji whispered. He looked away so he wouldn't have to meet their gazes. "I hope _we_ are. We're taking one hell of a risk."

**LATER...**

Kikoji, Blud, and Ruby stopped at a staff conference room, now an improvised ONI command and control center. Medical technicians in blue lab coats watched 330 video monitors and biosign sets. Bludshot spoke to one of the techs while Kikoji's gaze flicked from monitor to monitor.

He then went down to the open surgical arena. It had four hundred sections--each partitioned by semiopaque plastic curtaining, and each fitting with a sterile-field generator that blazed with its characteristic orange light overhead.

Kikoji entered one unit and found HIPNO-G122, Nadia, there.

The partitioned area was crammed full of machines. There were stands with bio monitors. Several intravenous and osmotic patches connected her to a chemo-therapeutic infuser, loaded with a collection of liquid-filled vials that would keep Nadia in a semisedated state while it delivered a cocktail of drugs over the next week. There was a crash cart and portable ventillator nearby, as well.

She struggled to rise and salute, but she fell back, her eyelids fluttering closed.

He went to Nadia's side and clasped her small hand until she settled into a deep sleep.

She reminded him of Kimi when she was this young: full of spunk, and never giving up. He missed Kimi. He had been dead to his fellow HIPNO-IIs for almost twenty years. He missed all of them.

The chemo-therapeutic infuser hissed, vials rotated into place, micromechanical pumps thumped, and bubbles percolated inside its colored liquids.

It was starting. Kikoji remembered when he went through the augmentation. The fevers, the pain--it felt as if his bones were breaking, like someone had poured napalm into his veins.

Nadia shifted. The bio monitors showed a spike in her blood pressure and temperature. Tiny blisters appeared on her arms and she scratched at them. They filled with blood and then quickly smoothed into scabs.

Kikoji patted Nadia's hand one last time and then went to the infuser and lifted the side panel. Inside were dozens of solution vials. He squinted, reading off their serial numbers.

He spotted "8942-LQ99" inside the infuser. That was the carbide ceramic ossification catalyst to make skeletons virtually unbreakable.

There was "88005-MX77," the fibrofoid muscular protein complex that boosted muscle density.

"88947--OP24" was the number for retina-inversion stabilizer, which boosted color and night-vision.

"87556-UD61" was the improved colloidal neural disunification solution to decrease reaction times.

There were many others: shock reducers, analgesics, anti-inflammatories, anticoagulants, and pH buffers.

But Kikoji was looking for three vials in particular, ones with different serial numbers--009927-DG, 009127-PX, and 009762-OO--that didn't match any standard medical logistics code.

They were there, bubbling as their contents were drained and mixed with picoliter precision.

He heard footsteps approaching.

Kikoji lowered the panel of the infuser and stepped back to Nadia's side.

There was rustling of plastic curtains and a medical tech in a blue lab coat entered.

"Is there anything you need help with, sir?" the medtech asked. "Anything I can get you?"

"Everything is fine," Kikoji lied. He brushed past the man. "I was just leaving."


	8. Intruders

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 7:

Intruders

**0645 HOURS, OCTOBER 31, 2552 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**ZETA MULDRADIS SYSTEM, NEAR SECTOR ZERO, **

**PLANET LIANDRIS BETA**

Two flash-bang grenades detonated--balls of lightning and thunder and fluttering leaves.

Adrian fell and reflexively curled into a ball. He'd seen the steel hexagonal tubes a split second too late, and then their images had been burned into his retinas.

They'd been too well camouflaged, chest level in the trees. Stupid. He wasn't thinking, letting his blood rise and get the best of him.

He uncurled and rolled to his feet. The only thing he heard was his hammering heart; otherwise, he was deaf.

Adrian blinked to clear his blurred vision.

Team Saber was down. Echo, Maddison, Holly, and Dante were on their knees. Their SPI armor camouflage buffers had been wiped by the flash-bangs, and only the faintest beige camo patterns were beginning to resolve like bruises. The new photoreactive coating technology could mimic a wide range of EM radiation, but it was still sensitive to overload.

He pulled Ecko to his feet, shook him. Ecko nodded and then got the others up.

Adrian motioned them back, reversing the direction they had walked into this trap. They only had a moment before Team Katana moved in for the kill.

This was his fault. He'd been too eager, too easily pushed into action without thinking. Ecko had spotted a sniper from Katana, and Adrian had too quickly decided to flank to the left...and walked straight into the _real_ trap, the flashbangs.

But that was the point of this exercise, wasn't it? Compress three Hipno squads into a square kilometer arena--think fast or die.

Or worse, in this case, think fast or _lose._

Adrian held up a hand, halting his team. They would not fall straight back. If he were Team Katana he'd have set up another trap for a retreating enemy. He motioned for them to hook right.

Team Saber moved in a crouch through the brush, slow, careful, eyes wide. Maddison took point, and she vanished into the green shadows.

Ringing started in Adrian's ears. That was a good sign. Another half-meter to those grenades and he'd have lost the eardrum. In situ cloning was an excruciatingly boring process, and he'd be happy to avoid the two-week mandatory downtime.

A red status light blinked from Maddison. The team froze. Five meters ahead, a fern bent and sprang back.

Adrian rapidly blinked his green status light: the signal to open fire. This was the best target they'd had all morning.

Suppressed gunfire surrounded him. The fern exploded into a shower of confetti.

A single Hipno hidden by the fern turned, their SPI armor flashing silver from the staccato of stun rounds that peppered its surface. Their foot caught on a root and he stumbled.

Adrian repeated the go-ahead signal, and his squad made sure the target _stayed _down with several bursts of well-placed rounds. The ballistic gel underlayer of their armor could take a hell of a pounding before breaking down.

After three seconds, he flashed red, and the ceased fire.

Maddison moved up and slapped a lime-green sticky flag on the still-writhing Hipno's back. The target was now officially "dead." Adrian activate a NAV marker and alerted C and C for pickup of the "corpse."

The ground trembled, just for a moment, but all the Hipnos of Team Saber froze, and then scanned the jungle, looking for the source of the disturbance.

Earthquake? Not likely. There was no tectonic activity on Liandris. That left only two possibilities: impact or detonation. Neither was especially welcome.

Adrian motioned for Saber to move out. They slinked through the jungle and emerged on a plain. Here, small limestone granite and quartz mesas, grottoes, and fissures extended to the north--up and beyond the high fence of Sector Zero.

The Sector was where the "ghost" of Liandris was supposed to be. It'd been spotted once or twice according to other Hipno candidates: a single eye in the dark. They just made that stuff up to scare plebes. Adrian had, however, heard of a Beta Company squad that had vanished near here and had never been found.

Another dull thump echoed off the distant mesa walls, and dust rose from the hardpan. Team Saber instinctively dropped into a crouch. Adrian pulled his sidearm.

"Big one," Dante muttered. "Artillery? One of the new 4-40's?"

"I don't think the General would use artillery on us," Adrian whispered.

"Not normally," Holly replied. "But this is the _last_ test. Maybe he's pulling out all the stops to figure out who'll get top honors."

Over TEAMCOM, Adrian said, "Mad, you get a direction on that blast?"

Maddison's status light winked red.

"Okay," Adrian said, "we'll assume it's artillery for now. I can't believe General Mantadurru would be using it...but Mendez is another story. You hear incoming, scatter, and take cover."

Four green LEDs lit his HUD, acknowledging his order.

Adrian had read somewhere that you never heard the artillery shell that killed you. He had no desire to personally test that battlefield legend.

"What's the plan for Katana and Gladius?" Echo asked.

"Katana's down one," Adrian replied. "We'll focus on the weaker of the two. We'll find--"

Another thump and the ground shuddered.

"Closer," Maddison whispered over TEAMCOM. "Vector north."

Forty meters to the north was the triple fence surrounding Sector Zero. Electrified razor wire, motion sensors, and lanes of minefields made an effective barrier. If pressed, Team Saber could have gotten around it--but they wouldn't. The General's orders had been crystal clear: DO NOT CROSS. It would count as an instant disqualification for top honors.

There was a dust storm about three kilometers into Sector Zero, a wall of sand, swirling smoke...and fire.

A distant mesa exploded--vaporized into a mushroom of glittering quartz dust, a hail of boulders, and roiling flame. Adrian instinctively ducked, and his insides clenched. He'd seen big explosions before, but nothing like that.

He unslung his sniper rifle and sighted through the scope.

They were drones of some sort. But not LEGION MAKOS. Not Furian Siren fliers either. They were a few meters long. Three dull steel booms that surrounded a central eye, glowing like molten iron. No obvious jets. No cockpit. There were a dozen of them.

"Has to be an experimental prototype," Dante said. "Maybe Sector Zero is a testing range for new weapons?"

"They wouldn't be 'testing' a megaton worth of destructive force while we were close," Adrian countered.

The drones moved from the atomized mesa, drifted closer to Team Saber's position, stopping short just on the opposite side of the Sector Zero fence, where they circled another butte.

Adrian spied motion atop that formation. Shutters from a camoflaged bunker popped open, and heavy machinegun fire strafed the drones.

The lead drone's three booms snapped forward to make a triangular flat plane. A glimmering film of gold popped into place and .50 caliber rounds impacted and bounced off.

"Energy shields!" Dante said. "Has to be Furian."

Adrian reluctantly agreed with this assessment. This was no game, no final honors test.

The war had arrived on Liandris.

He broadcast over and open COM channel: "Currahee C and C, come in. This is Saber One. We have an emergency."

No answer. His radio light was green. He _was _broadcasting, but no one was listening.

"Radio check," Adrian said. "Everyone try to get the General or the FBC. Try to raise the _Freedom Dawn, _too."

Keidrian emerged from the bunker, carrying M19 missile launchers.

The drones' eyes flared to a brilliant gold--energy projected forward, flicking like a rapier strike.

The furries and bunker wavered for a moment, erupted into flames, and vaporized. The mesa top then detonated into a cloud of dust and molten rock.

Adrian squinted through the haze.

The drones had scattered and moved forward, zigzagging over the rocky terrain: a search pattern.

At that same time, Adrian noticed that the sun had moved since he last looked at the sky, which was five minutes ago.

No, it hadn't moved. There were _two _suns.

This new sun faded and a ring of smoke expanded around its center. This fireball seemed to pause, and then it shattered in a starburst of glittering molten metal.

In high orbit, the _Freedom Dawn _exploded.

Adrian went cold. He keyed his mike and risked another open COM broadcast. "Team Katana, Team Gladius, Furian activity in Sector Zero. Forget the test, guys. We've got a situation."


	9. Civil War!

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 8:

Civil War!

**050 UNITS, 34 OCTEMRE 1354 (FURIAN CALENDAR)**

**NEAR FURIAN CAPITOL PLANETOID **_**ONWARD TO VICTORY,**_

**THIRD AGE OF REDEMPTION**

Major Sula 'Kuntakree drew his spiker pistol and fired at the back of Ship Master Tano's head.

The crystalline spokes thucked into the Ship Master's skull and exploded--spraying blood, brains, and bits of skull over the command console.

The magnitude of his treachery was unprecedented. What Sureptigon **(A/N: Furian Theron)** Major would dare disobey a Ship Master who had led seven glorious campaigns against their enemies? Who would murder his superior officer on the bridge of one of the fleet's most renowned cruisers?

But how could Sula let this continue?

Tano 'Inanraree had lost his mind, literally and figuratively. And while religious fervor was laudable under most circumstances, it was not if it killed killed the entire crew of the _Incorruptible_...and destroyed their race.

Sula stepped over the body of his friend and former commanding officer and holstered his weapon.

The U-shaped bridge seemed somehow smaller now, the blue-white light a little harsher than it had a moment ago, and the holographic consoles appeared covered in icons he couldn't understand. Sula blinked his nictating membranes and looked with cleared eyes at the bridge officers.

Sureptigon from the respected Dn'end Squadron--Crueo 'Lusonamee at Operations and Zassah 'Jeqkogoee at Navigation--stared with maws agape, shocked into inaction. Y'gar Pewtrunoee at the Communications/Sensors station nodded with understanding.

But the bonded Pulzolo** (A/N: Furian Seeker)** pair responsible for security on the _Incorruptible_ tensed; their armored hulks took two thudding steps toward Major Sula. Their spines fanned in anger. One of their duties was to protect the Ship Master, and, failing that, they were to enact revenge on his assassin.

In truth, the bonded pair, Paruto Xida Konna and Waruna Xida Yotno, were a mystery to Sula. He had seen them tear enemies in half with their "hands" while in the midst of a mindless blood rage, and afterward pause to recite war poetry. How could any truly understand the Pulzolo? Inside their thick armor swarmed purple worms--a colony gestalt as alien as anything Sula had encountered.

More pragmatically, they were indestructable--at least to Sula with his one half-empty pistol. Pulzolo armor could withstand multiple energy bolts before even warming.

Sula stood tall and unapologetic.

The Pulzolo stared at him. Their froms shuddered and the eel colonies pulsed in harmonic unison to produce a subsonic thrum, words that were more felt than heard. "A mercy kill," they said together. "You have done the Ship Master an honor."

Sula resumed breathing. They were his now to command and to send into battle. As was the Vengeance-class cruiser _Incorruptible_.

"Does anyone else have words about this?" Sula asked his bridge officers. They looked to one another.

Y'gar, the eldest bridge officer, stepped forward. His sole vanity was his left eye, which had been blinded in combat. He had refused to have the cataract repaired.

"Tano was devout to the end," Y'gar said. "But his reasoning, in light of recent events, was not sound. This was regrettable, but necessary...Ship Master."

There it was: Sula was Master now. All the honor his. All the responsibility his as well.

He glanced at Tano, spilling his lifeblood over the command console, and set a hand on his mentor's shoulder, a parting gesture. "Remove him," Sula whispered.

Y'gar made a chuffing sound and three Bultioy **(A/N: Furian Fodder)** appeared and carried Tano off the bridge, sponging up the remains as they went.

Sula knocked one with a cleaning rag aside. "Let his blood remain," he said. The Bultioy scurried away.

The stain would forever remain on Sula's soul: it could stay on the deck as well, a reminder of the price he had paid for their survival.

Sula then stared at the central holographic viewer: at the insanity that surrounded the _Incorruptible_.

The Tenth Fleet of Cleansing Light was in chaos, more than a hundred ships maneuvered on random vectors, barely avoiding collisions, and in the distance the evil black silhouette of the Ancestor Oblivion construct--ominous, breathtaking, and the source of this trouble.

It had made Ship Master Tano lose his mind. He had belonged to a fringe cult, the Governers of Contrition, who believed _all_ Ancestor creations were sacrosanct. This even applied to the xenoparasitic Blight infestation. Tano had reasoned that the Ancestors had created a perfect life-form, and it was therefore their duty to protect, even embrace, it. He had ordered the _Incorruptible_ closer to the Oblivion sphere to _allow_ the disease aboard.

That would never occur while Sula breathed. The Blight was an infection that had to be cleansed. There was nothing remotely "holy" about it.

The _Incorruptible _shuddered.

"Energy on the port lateral shield," Crueo 'Lusonamee said, leaning over his OPS station. His strained voice betrayed that he had only recently been initiated in combat. "Successfully deflected, but the shield has collapsed."

The hull reverberated once more.

"Strike on the aft shield," Crueo said. "It's holding."

"One third power forward," Sula said. "Roll to present starboard shields." He turned to Zassah on NAV. "Trace those firing solutions and give me a target!"

"Calculating, sir," Zassah said. "Solution obtained. Two targets."

A holographic frigate pair appeared on the deck and sped toward them: the _Tenebrous _and the _Twilight Compunction_, commanded by the Gultaranae (**A/N: Furian Enforcers)**, Gargantum.

This was Sula's other problem.

In the confusion cauused by the departing Speakers, the Sureptigon's ancient feud with the Gultaranae had escalated into xenocide.

The frigate pair moved as one, accelerating, their lateral lines warmed, and released a second salvo of energy that arced toward the _Incorruptible_. "Maneuver one two zero by zero seven five," Sula shouted.

"Coming about," Zassah answered, and the stars wheeled through the holographic view space. "Sir, that places the all-female carrier _Lawgiver_ between us and them."

"The _Lawgiver _has fully generated lateral shields," Sula growled. "They can take the hit."

The frigate pair split to miss the carrier in their flight path. The enemy ships, and their energy torpedoes, became obscured by the bulk of the sleek carrier.

"Heat lines four and seven," Sula ordered, "and prepare to target the _Tenebrous_ as it emerges from the carrier's shadow. Divert engine power to the fore energy projector and make ready to fire at full capacity. Estimate targeting solution based on last known trajectory."

Crueo nodded and made the weapons ready.

The alpha Gultaranae Ship Master was savage, but he was effective. Sula could not afford to merely wound one of them.

The edges of the _Lawgiver'_s shield shimmered, dispersing the energy into fiery wisps--an inconvenience for them...but a lifesaving maneuver for the _Incorruptible_.

The Gultaranae frigate attack pair appeared, over and under the carrier.

"Fire all lines!" Sula ordered.

The lights on the bridge dimmed as energy heated and flowed from their lateral banks and arced forward in two bloody streaks across the dark.

"Counterguidance signals detected!" Y'gar shouted. "Attempting to disrupt."

The energy blots drifted back and forth and diffused into smears in a signal tug-of-war between the two ships. Sula had not anticipated they had such abilities. Stolen, no doubt...so they wouldn't know all the system's intricacies.

"Reprogram to home in on their signal lock," Sula said.

"Yes," Y'gar murmured, and his hands moved algorithm blocks over this console. "Lock reestablished on new signal," he said.

Their bolts smoothed, concentrated--and accelerated.

The Gultaranae frigate turned into their shot, presenting the smallest possible target. A desperate maneuver, and not quick enough.

The frigate's shield heated, dispersing the first bolt of superheated energy. The second strike hit bare hull, melting the shield arrays and sensors, boiling away layers of smooth blue armor-alloy.

"Fire energy lance!" Sula commanded, "Dead center on tageting solution!"

"Aye, sir," Crueo said. "Projector spinning up--firing."

The bridge lights flickered to ultraviolet backup as all the _Incorruptible_'s power drained into a single spear of destruction. It lit the space around the battle, a cleansing illumination. The _Tenebrous_ appeared frozen in time for a moment...before the energy tore through its hull, blasting internal decks into atoms--amidships, and then the aft energy coils--shattering the ship into a haze of glowing particles.

The surviving Gultaranae frigate, the _Twilight Compunction_, however, was untouched...and it continued toward them.

"Recycling engine power," Zassah said. "Fifteen seconds until engine back online."

Fifteen seconds could be a lifetime in a close-quarter space engagement.

"Depressurize Launch Bay Fourteen," Sula shouted. "Dump energy from auxiliary coils into the lateral lines."

"Plasma diverted," Crueo answered, his face flushing, "Emergency depressurization---now."

A tremble ran through the ship as the bay vented. Propelled by the sudden outgassing of their atmosphere, they turned toward the surviving frigate. The _Incorruptible_'s lateral lines appeared to heat.

The _Twilight Compunction_'s engines flared and it turned, maneuvering behind a nearby destroyer for cover.

They were retreating--as they should when presented with superior firepower...even if that firepower was an illusion. Sula wondered if the Gultaranae Ship Master, Gargantum, had been aboard the _Tenebrous_, or if he had sent it ahead as a decoy.

The carrier, the _Lawgiver_, turned, and lasers stitched the frigate. Several beams painted it's hull, heating the shields--before another destroyer crossed the line of fire.

"Main coil reenergized," Crueo said.

"New course two seven zero by zero zero zero. Break fleet formation. We cannot fight without destroying our allies as well as our enemies.

The _Incorruptible_ turned and accelerated to a position three hundred kilometers over the fleet. Several ships fired upon one another, but many just drifted, unsure which action to take.

Their leader, Lady Furia, and her royal fleet were missing; some said they had left to partake in the Odessey. Rumors abound they had actually _aligned_ with the Gultaranae.

There was, however, an even greater threat.

The holographic image of the Sphere appeared on the main viewer. Four destroyers stood near, abeam, and targeted hundreds of smaller craft--Maledict, Mancubi, and even Sirens--that attempted to evacuate the surface of the ring structure. They burned these craft with energy bombardment and flashes of laser fire...but there were too many trying to escape.

Nothing could be allowed to leave that place. If a single Blight-infected vessel transistioned into hyperspace--their existence would end. The plague would never again be contained.

"Get me a fleetwide COM channel," he told Y'gar. "Use Furia's own frequency."

"Signal acquired," Y'gar said. "Ready for fleetwide broadcast."

Sula spoke. "This is Ship Master Sula 'Kuntakree of the _Incorruptible_ to all loyal vessels in the Tenth Fleet of Cleansing Light.

"Brothers, we must cast aside our confusion, and cease falling upon one another. The holy relic is tainted. We must burn the corruption lest it takes us all."

"Zassah," he ordered, "send coordinating target solutions to the fleet." He motioned over the main holographic viewer, selecting portions of the Sphere where dozens of Mancubi were slipping away. "We must stop them before they make contact with one of those destroyers."

"Aye, sir. Targeting solutions sent."

The majority of the fleet, sluggish and disoriented, slowly aligned into a coherent fighting force: energy arced from a hundred ships, and laser fire weaved lacy patterns on the dark of space.

Under such a destructive salvo of combined fire, the smaller ships burned---leaveing only debris and skeletal frames.

"Do not close with the targets," Sula said over FLEETCOM. "Or the disease will spread." His claws grasped the command console.

To the Pulzola pair Sula whispered, "Sweep the ship, continuous patrol, until I order otherwise. Report any hull breach no matter how slight. Any deaths. Anything that might be a Blight infection."

The Xida Pulzolos nodded and the lumbered off the bridge, their hands flexing in anticipation.

"Crueo," Sula said, "ready the self-destruct sequence. We must be prepared."

Crueo nodded, his maw working nervously, but he set plasma coils to detonation mode. "All ready," he replied.

"One of the destroyers near the ring is hailing the fleet," Y'gar said, "_Rapturous Arc._"

Static crackled and over that a whisper: _"This is Ship Master of the _Rapturous Arc._ We are overwhelmed. Do not allow them to make us their instruments. I will not---"_

The signal terminated.

The _Rapturous Arc_ moved, wheeled toward the stars, and then continued to turn toward the other three destroyers abeam of the Sphere. It touched one of its brother ships, energy shields shimmered, frequencies matched, and the Blight infected ship released a swarm of Incubation forms.

Over FLEETCOM Sula said, "Retarget. Burn those ships."

Sula then ordered Crueo, "Heat lines and target projector."

"Targeting solutions ready," Crueo answered.

Sula could take no chance. "Fire," he said.

Plasma and energy projectors fired from a dozen nearby ships and painted the two vessels. The destroyers' shields collapsed--decks mushroomed outward from the aft engine compartments--a wave of illumination that flared white, and the cooled to smoky afterimages.

"New targets," he told Crueo, indicating the other two destroyers near the Sphere. "Coordinate targeting solutions throughout the fleet."

Crueo hesitated only a moment, and then nodded. "Locked and ready. Targeting solutions sent, sir."

Those last two ships had been too close to their infected counterparts. There was no margin for error here. Not even a single Blight-infected cell could escape.

"Sir," Y'gar said, and stood straighter, "targeted destroyers have _dissipated_ their shields."

Sula nodded, nearly overcome by the nobility of his brother Ship Masters.

"Send the order fleetwide," he whispered. "Fire all lines and lasers. Discharge projector lances."

Plasma lines heated, detached, and swarmed off the hull of the _Incorruptible_ and the Tenth Fleet. Energy projectors fired and peeled off the ships' armor in a flash. Lasers peppered their boiling hulls, and air vented, sending them into tumbles. Plasma torpedoes impacted, squirting through holes, and igniting the vessels.

"Another round," Sula commanded. "Burn them to ashes."

More plasma impacted and the doomed vessels spun toward the Sphere, captured by it's gravity. It would be their pyre.

"Back the _Incorruptible _off," Sula ordered. "Thirty thousand kilometers."

Over INTERSHIPCOM Sula linked to the Xida Pulzolo pair. "Report."

Paruto spoke: "No breaches detected. All ship personnel accounted for. No taint exists."

Sula exhaled. There might yet be hope they could survive.

"Detecting _Twilight Compunction_, sir." Y'gar said, "and two other Gultaranae frigates on an intercept course. Their lateral lines are hot."

The crisis was not yet over but already they returned to the old hatreds. Sula scrutinized the fleet and saw others turning and firing on ships they had only moments ago fought side by side with.

"Make ready to transition to hyperspace," Sula ordered.

"With respect, sir," Y'gar whispered. "We are leaving the battle?"

"To stay here and fight until we are all dead is madness. Everything has changed. We will heed the summons of Imperial Admiral Xytan 'Jar Wattinree. We must warn them what has happened...the Gultaranae. The Blight."

"Hyperspace matrix energized," Zassah said. He shook his head, confused. "Anomalies detected in dimension YED-4, sir...cause undetermined."

"Can we safely jump?"

"Unknown, sir."

Hyperspace dimensions didn't exhibit "anomalies." Was this something caused by the Sphere? There was no time to investigate. They'd have to risk it.

"Set course and execute transition," Sula told him. "Salia system, outpost world Joyous Exultation."


	10. Omega Team

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 9:

Omega Team

**1500 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR) \**

**MURIA SYSTEM, PLANET SARAE \ GRAND OCEAN,**

**NEAR BASIDIAN ISLES COAST**

Omega Team---HIPNOS-J64,-K58, and -K43---sat on the blood tray of the Heron as it roared over the ocean, skimming a few meters over the water. The aft hatch was lowered, jammed open because a plasma shot had melted the hydraulics. Jesuit watched the jets churn the water behind them, happy to be _above_ the water instead of _under_ it.

In the last two weeks, Omega Team had been deployed from the temporary base camp Point Hope, on a peninsula in the tiger lands. They had been sent on numerous zero-gee ops to repel the Furian ships in orbit over the planet. They had then been dispatched to Mount Selthius in the freezing deep south, where they neutralized a Furian excavation with a HAVOK tac-nuke. They had then been deployed right off the Basidian Isles for a swim. Furian forces had been searching the seafloor for something. What precisely--a holy relic, a geological sample--no one knew, and it didn't matter. What mattered was when they got what they wanted, the Furians then historically burned the planet to remove and Keidrian/Basitin "infestation."

Omega Team had stopped both operations.

Jesuit looked over the ocean and wondered how long they could keep the Furians at bay in space. His gaze dropped to the corrugated floor of the Heron. It had lived up to it's name "blood tray"...stained with splashes of congealed dark red. Good people had died today.

On his HUD, the TACMAP showed the edge of a human island ahead. Jesuit exhaled and cleared his mind. They were close to their third target: the Black Obelisk.

There had been scattered reports that the Furians had invaded the Arcane Tower...before all contact with the Templars that resided there was lost.

Jesuit stood and stretched. Kyrie and Rael rose as well, sensing their brief downtime was over.

Kyrie opened one of the crates they had obtained from Point Hope near the tiger capital. Within was a new SRS99C sniper rifle. She disassembled it, cleaned each part, applied graphite lubricant, and reassembled the gun with mechanical precision. She then examined the ACOG Y-variant scope that had accompanied the rifle, and made microadjustments with a fine set of screwdrivers.

Rael tore into the box of ammunition and loaded magazines, sorting them by frag and AP types.

Jesuit opened an "egg carrier" box and divided up fragmentation and concussive grenades into three satchels.

He found an ONI datapad and turned it on. It had new Furian-Common translation matrices and the latest ONI intrusion and counterintrusion software. Updates courtesy of Liara. He tossed it into his bag.

In the cockpit, First Sergeant Laura "Smokes" Tanner flew, while her Crew Chief, Lance Corporal Jim Higgins, fiddled with the COM, trying to filter through the reports of the action in space and on the ground. Tanner popped a black bubble and continued to chew the contraband tobacco gum so popular with NCO fliers.

"So then," Tanner said to Higgins, "_Blood Arrow_ goes after the damned Furian battleship as it did an in-atmosphere hyperspace jump! Flattened the Templar Metropolis. I don't know what those split-chinned freaks were after, but they sure didn't stick around after they found it--that's all I heard. CENTCOM channels are dropping offline. That can't be good."

Jesuit looked to Kyrie and Kael. Kyrie made a short lateral cut with her hand, the "stay cool" gesture.

They couldn't worry about the larger strategic picture. They had to say focused on their part. Secure the orbital elevator, and win this war one battle at a time.

Jesuit spied the human coast ahead: surf and white sands.

The Heron screamed over jungle tangle. Fifty kilometers in the distance a massive tower stretched from ground to clouds: the LEC Nuclear Fission Complex, an 'experiment' by the Director and his cronies. Or, as the locals called it: The Black Obelisk, from the rein of terror the Humans had imposed with it. The facility was designed to build and test the new fissile engines for LNC ships, inadvertantly creating dangerous side effects is that it concentrates and amplifies psionic and magic waves.

It was two hundred years old, antiquated, but it contained one of the few surviving OE's (Orbital Elevators) capable of heavy lifting. In the last two weeks, nuclear devices were shipped from _Advent Dawn_ as a 'fail-safe' should anything go very wrong. Recent actions had made it abundantly clear that traditional arms would not help the LEGION fight a two-front war.

Sergeant Tanner continued, "So then the Furian fleet really starts to tear into the orbital defenses. It's getting ugly up there. Major skirmishes with the Second, Seventh, and Sixteenth Fleets."

"...Just as long as the plasma doesn't start dropping," Higgins replied.

Tanner stopped chewing her gum. "Multiple silhouettes ahead. Siren fliers. Whoa---" She craned her head, looking up.

Jesuit moved to the cockpit, following her gaze. Up near the top of the Obelisk, past a whisper haze of clouds, a pair of dots--each a kilometer-and-a-half long Furian ship--orbited.

"What the hell are they doing up there?" Tanner whispered.

Furian orbital support complicated this mission. Ground forces might have aerial support, heavy armor, or artillery.

But Furian didn't need the Obelisk to transport an invasion force. They'd just land their ships or use grav beams. Why were they here? Omega Team would have to move in closer before he could discern their motives.

Jesuit studied the radar images. "There's a hole in the Siren patrol pattern." He tapped the far edge of the screen. "Put us down here. We'll go in by foot."

"Your call," Tanner said dubiously. She pushed the throttle and the Heron accelerated, dropping so it now decapitated palm trees.

"Make ready for hot drop, Hipnos." She spun the Heron aound and sank into the jungle. "Call if you need a lift, Omega. Good hunting."

Jesuit, Kyrie, and Kael grabbed their gear and jumped out the back, eighteen feet to the sandy ground. The Heron roared away.

Jesuit pointed northeast and they moved silently through the tropical brush, and entered the shadow of the Black Obelisk.

A half kilometer from the fission complex, the jungle had been cleared and replaced by concrete, asphalt, and warehouses. Towering freight container cranes stood instead of coconut trees.

Jesuit heard the dull pounding steps of a Furian Behemoth attack platform. He spotted the lumbering machine as it crashed through a warehouse, tearing steel walls like tissue paper.

"Trouble," he muttered over TEAMCOM.

"Opportunity," Kael countered.

Kyrie kept her comments to herself and methidically wrapped the barrel of her new sniper rifle with brown and green rags. She lay in the scrub, powered on her ACOG scope, and sighted down its length.

"LMC personnel down," she reported. "Thermals cold. All dead. Making out six--no, a dozen Furian moving in groups of four...carrying cargo pods. Not Therons. Enforcers."

Jesuit paused, remembering the simian creatures from their op on _Everlasting Vengance_. A single Enforcer had wrestled Kikoji in his Advent state...and almost won. Not as bad as facing Furian Seekers, but Seekers only came two at a time.

"Where are they going?" Jesuit asked.

She shifted her sight. "Elevator. They've got an ascent car half full."

"Switch to neutron detector," Jesuit suggested.

Kyrie twisted a dial on the ACOG scope. "Cargo pods are hot," she confirmed.

"Nukes?" Kael said. "Furians don't use nukes. They have an edict about using 'heretic' weapons."

He was right. Jesuit had seen Therons, their weapons depleted of ammunition, die rather than touch fully loaded LMC combat rifles at their feet.

But Enforcers weren't Therons.

"Estimate ten minutes before that ascent car is loaded to capacity," Kyrie said.

Jesuit had to think fast, or failing that, just act. No, he resisted that impulse. Better to figure this out, at least tactically, before he had his team rush in.

"We could take a dozen Enforcers," Kael said. "Kyrie could snipe them. We could move in and engage one at a time."

"Too slow," Jesuit told him. "And they'd send for reinforcements. The ascent car could be on its way up the Obelisk before we could get to it."

Kyrie moved her aim from side to side. "Got a parking lot. Crunchers, trucks, APCs...a gasoline tanker truck."

Jesuit and Kael exchanged glances.

"It's an old-school rebel," Jesuit murmured, "but I like it. Kyrie, make a hole. Kael, you introduce that tanker to the Behemoth. I'll secure the ascent car. You two meet me after the bang." He took a deep breath, recalling how tough these monsters were. "They use energy-launchers," he told them, "and they're too strong and tough to engage in close quarters. Try for the head shot--at range."

"Roger that," Kael said.

Kyrie's green status light winked on in reply. She was entering her sniper icy-cold state of Zen no-thought.

Jesuit nodded to Kael and they ran in opposite directions along the edge of the brush. Jesuit stopped when he was a kilometer from Kyrie's position, and then he sent his green status signal.

A moment later, Kael's status burned green.

Jesuit rechecked his rifle, his extra magazines, and then tensed, preparing to run.

A patrol of three Enforcers moved along the edge of the facility. They were smart, keeping to the shadows, glancing back and forth, sniffing.

There were three distant coughs--three splashes of blood--and three Enforcers, each missing their right eye and a fair portion of their ugly face, crumpled.

There was no warning light from Kyrie, so she had no additional targets in sight. She'd soon reposition higher to get a better view. This was Jesuit's opening.

He sprinted to the base, and ducked around the corner of a warehouse--nearly bumping into an Enforcer running toward his position.

It towered over him, covered in thick slabs of muscle and dull blue rhino-like hide.

Jesuit fired without thinking, a full-auto burst, dead center of body mass.

The Enforcer rushed him, unfazed.

Jesuit stepped into the beast's charge, striking at it's thick neck with the butt of his rifle. It connected. The Enforcer reeled back and roared.

Jesuit unloaded the remaining rounds in his clip into the Enforcer's open mouth.

The Enforcer snarled a mouthful of shattered, smoldering teeth and took two steps toward Jesuit...and fell.

Jesuit reflexively reloaded his PA6K, and slowed his breathing. He grabbed the Enforcers blade-tipped handshotgun.

His ears should have picked the Enforcer up. Maybe his recent saltwater dunking and ice-encrustation had caused a problem with his hearing.

Jesuit stuck a finger in his ear, twisted, and brought it back out. His hearing went out for a moment, then came back, registering dozens of bootfalls. This could get more complicated.

He heard the roar of a diesel engine, turned, and say the blur of an eighteen-wheel tanker crashing through the gate and guardhouse.

Kael was about to make things very hot.

Jesuit ran, hugging the walls of the warehouse. He turned that next corner and watched a fireball envelop the fifty-five-meter tall Behemoth walker--the tanker truck crushed under one 'foot.'

The Behemoth ignited, its board reactor breached, spewing white-blue plasma down the streets, turning asphalt into flame, and melting steel-clad temporary structures.

Kael's status light winked green.

Jesuit moved toward the elevator dead ahead.

Nestled in the spine support of the Obelisk, nanowire cables stretched to anchor points from a hundred meters to kilometers distant, and lines of elevator cars waited in queue.

The cars were usually loaded by crane and rail with fiberglass cargo pods. Today, however, three Enforcers wrestled crates into the car, secured them with ropes, and protected them with Styrofoam wedges (**Huh...**).

Jesuit shook his head--as if those nukes would go off if jostled. You could set a bomb off in there and their hardened cases would barely be scratched. Without the detonator codes, those older nukes were no more dangerous than paperweights.

The Enforcers entered the car, and started to force the wide doors shut.

Jesuit flashed his green status light to Kael and Kyrie. He couldn't wait. He had to stop those Enforcers now, before they rolled up the stalk--out of reach.

He slung the handshotgun and his rifle and primed two grenades, which he threw into the elevator. He then redrew the Gnasher and sprinted for the car and its closing doors.

Detonations flashed inside.

Jesuit jumped--twisted sideways, scraping through the slight space between the doors.

He landed, rolled to his feet, and saw the open-mawed expressions of three stunned Enforcers. He leveled the Gnasher and blew one's head off.

He turned as the other blinked and charged him. He blasted it point blank between the eyes.

The Enforcer bowled him over, and it's fists came down in twin hammer blows that stunned Jesuit and drained his tac-armor's structural integrity to the near breaking point.

Blood gushed from its injured face...and then it finally registered that most of it's head was gone. It toppled upon Jesuit, inert.

The last Enforcer pulled the body off, and pointed a grenade launcher at Jesuit's head.

The Gnasher was missing. He tried to shake off the disorientation from the double knockout blow. His head felt like it was filled with biofoam.

The Enforcer seemed to grin.

Two soft puffs sounded.

The Enforcer stiffened and collapsed to the deck, a pair of holes spraying blood at the base of its head. Shadows crossed the opening between the doors.

Kael and Kyrie slipped inside. Kael moved straight to the car's manual override panel. Kyrie's sniper rifle still smoldered.

"Company's coming fast," she said, and shot each Enforcer once more. "I hope this car can move."

Jesuit regained his senses.

The inside of the car was a mess. The grenades had busted every crate and punched rents into the walls. A dozen conical warheads lay scattered, but intact, on the deck.

Jesuit took up position by the door and looked out.

Three StarWrath tanks crushed a path through the complex, heading their way. In the sky, Siren fliers circled.

"Here..." Jesuit dug into his satchel and handed Kael the ONI datapad.

Kael booted the intrusion software and cut through the elevator's control software. "Hang on," he said. "Maximum acceleration."

The climbing motors engaged and high-frequency screams rattled the car.

"Ah--the clutch," Kael noted, and pressed a button.

A jolt of upward acceleration hit. Jesuit, Kyrie, and Kael were driven to all fours, and the car groaned and pinged.

Jesuit rolled over and looked out the open doors. The ground dropped away; the StarWrath tanks looked like toys. Would they fire on the stalk? Or would they gather forces and follow thme with another car?

"Kael..."

"I'm on it." Kael returned to the override panel. "Interfacing with Stalk Control. Jamming the sequencing tracks. That should slow them down."

Kyrie eased next to Jesuit by the open doors. She set a tiny satellite dish down and it opened like a rose bud. "Getting a LMC network handshake," she reported.

"Raise CENTCOM," Jesuit told her. "Tell them we need an extreme-low orbit extraction. We'll need a fast ship to get in before those Furian ships at the top can---"

"Stand by," Kyrie said. "FLEETCOM contacting _us_." She turned to Jesuit. "It's Lord Itachi on _Leviathan_."

Itachi's unshakably confident voice came over the COM: "Give me a status report, Omega."

"Sir," Jesuit anwered. "Furian forces at the Black Obelisk were after the mothballed nukes being shuttled up to the fleet. We've recovered twelve HAVEN warheads. We are en route to low orbit on the stalk. There's an entire company of Enforcers on the ground with StarWrath tanks and Siren reinforcements."

Jesuit craned his head skyward.

Along the arc of Sarae, distant sparks and lines of fire traced traced patterns of destruction. Long smoking trails plummeted to the ground, ending in thermal blooms of impacted ships and plasma bombardment. The broken hulls of LEGION ships made a boneyard of the thermosphere. There were Furian ships in orbit as well...many more than Jesuit remembered...dozens.

He squinted, and his cybronic right eye magnified.

"There are two Furian destroyers at the Obelisk's terminus near Station Wayward Rest."

"I'll send a prowler for an ELO extraction," Lord Itachi said. "Get your team ready." There was and uncharacteristic hesitation, and then he said in a lowered voice, "One more thing has come up: a message from Dr. Liara Mantadurru--" Jesuit felt Kyrie stiffen as her mother's name was mentioned. "--and a new mission."

They all exchanged a glance.

"Dr. Mantadurru's message," Lord Itachi explained, "was piggybacked on a carrier signal sent by Serina through hyperspace. The message was subsequently detected by LEGION Hyperspace Monitoring Station _Democritus._ It will make more sense if you heard and read the material. Set to encryption scheme thirty-seven."

Jesuit called up his encryption codes. Thirty-seven corresponded to code word SHEEPINWOLFSCLOTHING.

He input the code. "Ready to recieve."

The message played.

The Hipnos listened to her automated distress on the new Oblivion threat and the Blight. Enigma had been with her. There were no further details other than the single mention of him on the Ancestor ship. Lord Itachi had to be sending them as backup.

But then Dr. Mantadurru's text message appeared, explaining the discovery of new Ancestor technologies, and the possibility of capturing and using them to neutralize both Furian and Blight threats.

Jesuit reread the message; there was no mention of Jen. His eyes lingered on the last line: "SEND HIPNOS."

He now understood why Dr. Mantadurru had left them, although not her reckless disregard of mission protocol. She had then followed some clues found in the ruins of Tau Cetia IV, or perhaps within the alien blue crystal. It was a high-risk venture that had luckily paid off. If she had discovered a cache of technology, it could turn the tide of the war.

Jesuit held up his hands, palms up, and gave a slight shrug to his teammates, soliciting their opinions.

Kyrie nodded. Kael gave the thumbs-up sign.

"We understand, sir," Jesuit replied, "and we're ready for dedeployment. This Liandris system, though--" He rechecked the stellar coordinate embedded in the message. "It's weeks away with the fastest LMC corvette."

"We'll just have to do our best," Lord Itachi said. "The _Wolf_ stands ready and waiting for your team. They'll jump the instant you board. I'll send reinforcements if we can spare them."

Jesuit leaned out the elevator doors. Outside blue skies had turned to black and untwinkling stars now surrounded them. He squinted again. In medium orbit were sleek Furian destroyers...so much faster then any human ship.

"Sir," he said. "I think I've found us a better way there. But I'm going to the the detonation codes for these HAVEN warheads."


	11. To Liandris!

The Hipno Chronicles:

Ghosts of Liandris

Chapter 10:

To Liandris!

**1420 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (IMPERIAL CALENDAR)**

**MURIA SYSTEM, PLANET SARAE \ MEDIUM ORBIT, NEAR LNC**

**NUCLEAR FISSION COMPLEX "BLACK OBELISK"**

Jesuit, Kyrie, and Kael clung to the base of the turret, trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. It was not as imposing a weapon as its larger kin mounted upon Furian battlecruisers. With an energy coil about one-third the size of a Humvee, it was barely capable of concealing three Hipnos.

A great plan...as long as the weapon wasn't fired.

Two Furian destroyers floated in the dark, their smooth hulls looking more like some deep-sea creature than spacecraft. A dozen Lightblade fighter ships and a handful of shuttles angled toward their base ships.

Jesuit gave a quick nod to the others.

It was working. At least, as well as any plan could that involved three humans against a hundred Enforcers and the combined might of two battle-ready warships.

The LNC corvette _Wolf _had come, but not for a daring exfiltration. It had been a bit of misdirection, giving the Furian ships something to focus on as the Hipnos sealed their pressure suits and transferred outside the elevator car.

When two Furian Mancubi dropships came to collect the warheads, Jesuit, Kyrie, and Kael had stealthed under one of the vessels and--if their luck held--they would be ferried away.

The "luck" part of this mission couldn't be taken for granted...because above them sat a dozen--now armed--HAVOK nuclear bombs.

"A little slice of Armageddon," Kael had called it.

Their dropship smoothly accelerated toward one of the destroyers, and an open shuttle bay yawned before them.

He spotted the other shuttle as they moved to the sister vessel. Then the hull of the destroyer flashed before them and cut off the view. Artificial gravity tugged at them.

They'd made it inside.

The three Hipnos slipped from the underside of the ship and rolled out of the shadows. Jesuit and Kyrie took cover around either fork of the hull. Kael leapt to the top of the vessel.

Ten Scarfers and a score of Fodder stood in the open bay between the twin hulls of the dropship--a space usually encased by a gravimetric field, now dropped to allow them to unload their stolen cargo.

Omega Team opened fire.

Three Scarfers dropped, but the remaining vulture-headed aliens snapped on their shield gauntlets and fell back.

The Fodder scattered, and Kael concentrated his fire on them, dropping six, igniting one's vesvane mask, which exploded into a fireball and wiped out another dozen.

Jesuit and Kyrie combined fire on the leader Scarfer in red armor. Its shield shimmered, failed, and armor-piercing rounds penetrated his body, making it shudder and dance.

Two Scarfers screeched and chucked grenades at Jesuit. Kyrie tracked them, fired once, twice, shooting both projectiles midtoss.

The grenades detonated into a spray of half-heated ionized gas, which made the Scarfers' and the Hipnos' energy shields shimmer and drain.

Meanwhile, a pair of Scarfers opened fire on Kael; he dodged the shots, but was forced back.

A plasma bolt singed the hull near Jesuit, but he ignored it and focused on the pair targeting Kael. He flicked his PA6-L rifle to full auto and fired. Kyrie combined her fire and they dropped the Scarfers.

The last four Scarfers charged Jesuit and Kyrie--plasma pistols firing.

Kyrie made a fist and pumped it once. Jesuit nodded and faded back behind the hull, leaving a primed grenade on the ground. He reloaded, waited two heartbeats, and then twin blasts shuddered through the hull.

Jesuit moved up and shot the wounded Scarfers struggling to rise of the deck.

He looked for another target.

None but the Hipnos stood. The cavernous shuttle bay of the Furian destroyer was empty save mangled and bloodied corpses of Scarfers and Fodder.

Jesuit pointed at Kyrie and then to the nukes on the ship. They had to get those things defused. She nodded and moved toward the HAVEN warheads.

Jesuit strode to a set of pressure doors and the nearby control panel.

Three Hipnos couldn't take a Furian ship; not under normal circumstances, but Omega team had three advantages.

First, they had the element of surprise. What Furian Brood Lord would dream three L.E.G.I.O.N might board and capture their ship?

Next, Omega Team had been on an enemy warship before; they knew the basic layout.

And last, and most important, the Furians were slow to change. While their technology was centuries ahead of the most advanced the L.E.G.I.O.N could muster, it had become more dogma than science. They didn't innovate; they imitated.

Certainly they'd heard about the capture of the _Soul Monger_ by Kikoji. If that had happened to a L.E.G.I.O.N ship, there would have been new security protocols enacted on every ship in every fleet to prevent it from happening again.

Jesuit was betting their lives that the Furians didn't think like that.

He retrieved the ONI datapad, newly updated with Furian translation software, and set it upon the control panel. Purple lights flickered on the panel near the pad as the pad's network infiltration programs booted...and it slipped into the Furian ship's system.

He was in. It was just like having Liara around...without the chatter.

Jesuit searched intership messages and found an alert: the team unloading the nukes was overdo to report. An Enforcer team had been sent to see what was wrong.

Kael and Kyrie took cover inside the dropship's cockpit. Jesuit wished he could join them. They powered up the ship. It lifted, turned, and backed into the far corner to protect the nukes from the next phase of his plan.

Jesuit returned to the datapad. He had little time before the entire ship was alerted to the invading army of three.

He scrolled through the ship systems and found the icon he needed: an arrow encircling twin dots. Pressurized molecular oxygen. Kikoji had shown them that one. Jesuit overrode the ship's self-seal bulkheads--jammed them open. Evey pressure door he secured--ajar. The ONI hackware churned as it stripped away security protocols. He primed the ship's life pods and froze their air lock hydraulics.

He flashed his red, amber, and green status light to give Kael and Kyrie a countdown.

As the green winked off, Jesuit gripped a handle on the wall and clutched the datapad.

As the amber light dimmed he slaved the controls for the energy shield on the shuttle bay, the emergency life-pod releases, and the air-lock overrides.

On red...he punched the master release.

A drum roll sounded through the ship's hull.

The shuttle bay's shield vanished.

A hurricane pulled at Jesuit, blew out cargo pods, bodies, tools, and small repair ships.

He clung to the handle; one side of the metal bar bent and pulled free, but then the tremendous gale subsided. All the air had evacuated into space.

Jesuit rechecked his atmospheric reserves. They had been in combat and on the Obelisk for a long time where no one was taking tiny breaths. His pressure suit had seven minutes of air left.

He went back to the datapad and checked: all corridors and rooms read zero pressure. Unless there were Furian forces in pressure suits, this ship was a ghost ship now.

Kael and Kyrie joined him.

Jesuit rerouted power and the doors slid apart.

Omega Team entered the hallway and quickly made their way toward the bridge. Six dead Enforcers lay on the floor. For all their ferocity, even they had to breathe.

Jesuit halted at another set of pressure doors and accessed the control panels. Kyrie knelt by his side, sniper rifle butted against her shoulder, aimed at the center of the doors. Kael stood on the opposite side, a grenade in each claw, ready to throw.

Jesuit touched his ear against the bulkhead and listened. Nothing. He then keyed the doors open.

The octagonal bridge was empty save for a single Furian Seeker who miraculously clung to the railing of the command console. Inside the monster's inch-thick armor, its insides had oozed out and freeze-dried to the deck.

The three Hipnos checked the lfe-pod hatches for any sign of the enemy. Jesuit saw the open space beyond, stars...and the other Furian destroyer turning toward them.

He moved onto the command platform and set the datapad in the interface location. Jesuit had to hurry; he had to move slow, too. Rushing now might cause errors that could cost them more time. It took all he had to focus on language matrices, numbers, and icons.

Kael watched from a life-pod hatch, and whispered over TEAMCOM, "Destroyer on intercept vector."

Jesuit accessed that datapad's memory and got the hyperspace jump solution provided by a NAV officer on _Leviathan_. He hoped the Furian ship would accept the human mathematics or they'd be stuck here.

Kyrie joined Kael by the open hatch, peering through her ACOG sniper scope. "Ten thousand kilometers and closing, fast," she said.

"Arm HAVOK warheads," Jesuit told her.

"Roger," she replied.

This was where the luck part of their plan would be stretched to its thinnest. Had the Furians shuttled the now active warheads onto their ships? Would they notice the detonators had been primed?

"Confirmation signal lock," Kyrie said.

"Okay, come on," Jesuit whispered to the datapad.

The command surfaces lit and holographic geometries drifted over its surface. A tiny version of the console appeared on his datapad with Common translations.

Jesuit grabbed the spherical hyperspace command and rotated it. Its ready status winked in ultramarine. He input the jump coordinates.

The sphere then froze, and a white vector stretched toward tiny stars that appeared over the command surface. A blinking gold starburst appeard to initiate the hyperspace transition.

"Two-second countdown," he told Kyrie," on my mark."

Kael pulled the hydralics from the open hatch, grasped the door, and rolled it back into place.

The bridge's main holographic viewer flickered on and showed the closing destroyer. Warning indicators pointed to the ships' heating lateral lines.

"Two-second timer confirmed," Kyrie said. "Commands accepted and confirmed. All six HAVEN nukes show armed status."

"Mark!" Jesuit tapped the jump button.

Nothing happened...

Black space turned white...

Lord Iatachi watched from the command deck of _Leviathan_, ignoring the warbling emergency signals.

The Furian destroyer had maneuvered into optimal plasma range. He hoped the shields of the Hipno-captured ship staved off at least one salvo, and gave the Omega Team the time they needed.

Hipno-104's plan had been inspired, yet in Lord Iatachi's seasoned opinion, suicidal. Dr. Rahel Nightshift had once told him in confidence that Hipno's considered it their duty to prove the impossible possible.

The Furian ship's plasma lines reddened, bolts formed, and launched. At the same time, the enemy destroyer flashed _inside_ their energy shields; its hull glowed and vaporized as the stolen nuclear devices detonated. A circle of white light appeared an instant before _Leviathan_'s polarization shields cut the viewscreens. Thermal and radiologicals showed smears of amber and red mushrooming outward in wavering torus.

Station Wayward Rest had been obliterated as well. The tall form of the Black Obelisk crumpled and fell to Sarae.

There was no sign of the Hipno-held ship. There was no way to know if they had succeeded and jumped into hyperspace or not.

Lord Iatachi chos to believe they had done the impossible and whispered, "Godspeed, Omega Team."


End file.
